


Answers to Questions Yet Unanswered

by allihearisradiogaga



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Blood and Violence, Co-workers, Coworkers to lovers, Epistolary, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Murder Mystery, Partners to Lovers, Past Violence, Promptio Big Bang, Spooning, past trauma, promptiobb2020, true crime writer AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27327742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allihearisradiogaga/pseuds/allihearisradiogaga
Summary: Prompto is assigned to take photos for a true crime cold case retrospective on the 30th anniversary of the crime with a writer he's never worked with before, and as they research the article, they find they might even solve the crime--and as they do, they grow closer and closer to one another.
Relationships: Aera Mirus Fleuret/Ardyn Izunia, Gladiolus Amicitia/Prompto Argentum
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20
Collections: Promptio Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was my quarantine project, getting a little out of my comfort zone with the style and having some fun with different tropes in a slightly macabre situation. These two are so much fun, and I really hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> OF COURSE I would be remissed if I didn't include the excellent illustration for this fic from Jayy (jayysnest on twitter)!  
>   
> https://twitter.com/JayysNest/status/1322925128469172225?s=20
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who helped this fic happen!!!  
> Lhugy_for_short and hobbit_hedgehog, thanks so much for the beta!

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 14)

I’m going to say this here not because I need to complain about my life to my diary, but because I need to sort out my thoughts somewhere and the blog isn’t really the place for it. Noct is always writing in his journal, anyway, so it can’t be all that uncool.

I mean, I had a journal anyway—I might as well use it.

I don’t know what they think of me at work. I really don’t. I want them to think of me as more of a professional, but—

Well, I guess I should really start by explaining that I’ve been reassigned.

I’ve been working for the magazine as the street crew for like two years now. Everyday stuff, you know? Sort of like _Humans of New York_ , though they’d never admit that was who we were ripping off. I was lucky, and it worked out well, I mean, I got to talk to people and see the different parts of their lives…

I liked it. Spending time outside, picking my own shots… it worked well. And the best part was that it was all _me_. I did it all—I mean, they told me about their lives, and I typed it up. The editor picked the most attention-grabbing stuff, and it was in the next issue.

Maybe it was that I didn’t want to go digital.

But they just—in an instant, I’m on a new assignment.

True crime.

What the hell do I know about true crime?

I think it might have been to get rid of me. The people-on-the-street feature was nice, but they didn’t want it. It wasn’t gritty. It didn’t make headlines.

So they put me on this cold case with some writer I’ve never heard of, and—

Arugh, it sucks.

## Prompto’s Blog (Same Night)

I can’t believe that I have to make this post, and I’m sorry for anyone who follows the “People on the Street” feature, but after the next few issues, it’ll be shutting down. It’s run its natural course, and even though (of course) I love the project, it’s time for it to come to an end.

This doesn’t mean I’m retiring, by any means! I’ll continue to keep y’all updated here on my blog and continue to share the exciting new projects I’m going to be pursuing!

The first one I can’t quite talk about yet, but it’s still at _Cutting Edge_ , and if you already subscribe (which I’ll assume you do if you follow “People on the Street”), you should see it there in a month or so.

I can’t express how grateful I am for all of your support of “People on the Street,” and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy these last few installments! I wish the best to you all, and you’ll hear more from me soon!

-Prompto

## Clipping from Last Week’s Issue of _Cutting Edge_

_Photo of a woman in her mid-to-late thirties with round, thick glasses and dark skin. Her hair is tied back, and her overalls and rubber gloves are dirty as to indicate that she has been working in the dirt. The stone wall of a park serves as a backdrop, with branches of trees poking over the top. She is smiling._

“Usually, people don’t stop and ask me what I’m doing; they just give me the side eye and walk away. They don’t realize I work for the city! You see, there’s actually a complex and delicate ecosystem in each park in this city. Squirrels, mice, birds, frogs—those are my favorite, the frogs. They’re fascinating, both tenacious and resilient at the same time. Oh, well, I guess you can say the same thing about people, too.”

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 15)

First of all, this guy is a meathead. The way his bio pumped him up, I figured he’d be an old man professor type. But he’s like seven feet tall and 400 pounds of pure muscle.

Well, maybe not that big. But you get the picture. Not exactly the type I’d expect to be writing literary true crime, getting called the “modern Capote” or whatever (so what I looked up some of his articles in old issues? I haven’t read any yet, but the reviews seem to love him so).

I mean, he was nice enough in the meeting, even though we didn’t really say much to one another besides swapping contact info.

The editors are excited about the piece, or so they say. Their faces didn’t match that enthusiasm, though. I couldn’t tell if Gladiolus—that’s the writer’s name—saw their disinterest or not—he’s hard to read.

We planned to leave the day after tomorrow—no sense waiting around. Gladiolus had mentioned that he’d already done most of the research. Apparently, it was a pretty well-known murder. I don’t know, I’m not into that kind of stuff.

It’s a suburb of DC, so we’re flying out, and I’m pretty anxious about that. I mean, it’s not that I’m scared about the _job_ or anything—well, maybe a little—but I am freaked out by flying, especially with someone I barely know.

Whatever.

I’ve got to do it anyway. Have to pay the bills.

Noct says I should take it as a challenge, to broaden my horizons and try new things. I appreciate that, and he’s probably at least a little bit right. He also has been working the same lifestyle column his whole adult life, so I am not sure how qualified he is to give out advice about “new challenges.”

He does write a lifestyle column, though, so that has to count for something.

I don’t know. I’ll get through the flight first, then Gladiolus and I can figure out what happens next.

## Clipping from _Cutting Edge_ : “Without a Trace: the Shelby Mae Murder Remains Unsolved,” One Month Ago

Her shriek pierced the night and anyone within earshot could feel the chills tingling down their spines. Shelby Mae’s murder was at night, yes, but the brutal stabbing and strangulation occurred in the gazebo of a well-populated park that summer evening. There were dozens of people enjoying the outdoors—families, joggers, couples on romantic picnic dates—and much to the dread of Shelby Mae, her murder did not disturb any of their evenings.

It was the exact sort of thing someone might expect to watch in a horror movie. But this was something worse: it was the place from which these movies drew their inspiration.

The murder was random, so far as the authorities have been able to tell. Mae’s murder does not match the modus operandi of any crimes in that area or time period, and none of her family, friends, or coworkers were ever called in as suspects. Everyone had an alibi. Everyone was accounted for.

Nearly 80% of violent crimes are committed by someone the victim knows. There is a sort of comfort in that grisly face—in this statistic, it’s much easier to find a motive. It’s easier to make sense of _why_ and _how_ the crime happened. When there is no apparent motive or reason… That makes it more difficult for the investigators, the family, and even for the general public to understand and accept.

The nonsensical violence scares us, and for good reasons. And murders like Shelby Mae’s remind us that though it is comparatively rare, this type of thing can happen.

Shelby Mae herself was a twenty-year-old student at the University of Michigan, home for the summer in Langdon, not far north of Lansing. She was studying business, looking to become a small business owner. Her close friend and aspiring business partner, Jemma Green, had also been attending, and together they had plans for a beauty line that focused on sun protection. Both young women had been discussing their future plans—and upcoming senior year—at Jemma’s parents’ home the night of Shelby’s murder.

Shelby wasn’t going to walk far—she only lived a few blocks away from Jemma, and the distance between their homes was less than a mile. And between them was the park—this would make her walk home seem even safer, of course, because on clear summer nights like this, it was a gathering place for locals. She would be okay.

She left the Green residence at 6:08 PM. Multiple eyewitness reports placed her at the park shortly thereafter, but none of them mentioned anyone else with her. No one saw—or, at least, no one thought they saw—the killer.

By 6:30 PM, she was dead.

She had been strangled with a ligature, but seven stab wounds in her chest were the actual cause of death, according to the coroner’s report.

No one remembers hearing her scream, but the strangulation may have been the cause of that. There were a few defensive bruises on her arms, indicating that she did struggle, at least at first, before she died.

The case never came to a trial, and no charges have even been raised. There was no evidence, physical or circumstantial, that led investigators toward finding any particular person as a suspect. The unexplained nature of this cold case leads it to being a hotbed to internet speculation, even today.

Some amateur sleuths have attempted to match the murder with patterns of established killers at the time, hoping to connect this murder to those of a known serial killer, much like investigators did in the 1990s when they established that the Original Night Stalker and East Area Rapist were the same person. The advantage those investigators had that this case does not, however, was an abundance of crime scene evidence as well as a DNA match.

Shelby Mae’s murder does not have such advantages for investigators, whether amateur or professional. And while work continues on this case, it seems like for now at least, it will remain unsolved, and continue to haunt those who are drawn in by the story.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 16)

Okay, so I’ve read some of the stuff Gladiolus has written, and… wow.

This is definitely a departure from what I’m used to.

He doesn’t get gory on anything, like, his articles aren’t _gross_ , but they’re unsettling. It’s like he knows what’s the scariest about a murder and writes about it so that’s what you remember about it the most.

I mean, I guess that’s the appeal of this kind of writing, but I can tell already that it’s not for me.

I don’t want to rag on this Gladiolus guy or anything, either. I mean, he’s probably fine. But reading the stuff he writes, I guess I can see why he’s as serious as he is. I mean, that guy is intimidating. I don’t think I saw him smile the whole time we were in the meeting yesterday.

I wonder how he feels about having assigned as his partner on this? I mean, I don’t have any experience in this sort of thing…

I’m almost finished packing, though, and we leave tomorrow. I can’t wait for the six-hour flight to Washington to find out if he’s really as serious as he seems. And it won’t be awkward _at all_ …


	2. Chapter 2

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 17)

This stuff is spookier than I expected.

I mean, I’d read the stuff that Gladio’d written before, so I guess I was a little prepared for it, but that didn’t stop me from being freaked out.

First of all, we didn’t talk much on the plane. As soon as we got on, he pulled out some book, and didn’t really look up until we touched down.

I had let him take the window seat, thinking that I was being friendly, but I probably could have saved that gesture. He didn’t look out the window _once_ , meanwhile I was sandwiched between his broad shoulders and this lady who scowled at me whenever my elbow came even _close_ to slipping on the armrest.

And when I got up around hour four to go to the bathroom? The look she gave me could have killed.

Our hotel is unsurprising and boring, but we booked a place with one queen bed and a pull-out (thanks to the generous travel expenses _Cutting Edge_ is willing to spare), and I (again) was way too polite and offered up the good spot to Gladio, who just responded with a gruff “thanks.”

I can’t tell if he’s annoyed with me or not, which is what is _really_ annoying.

We grabbed a quick meal from the diner just down the street from the hotel, where a particularly cute waitress made eyes at Gladiolus without so much as a second glance in my direction.

From there, I guess he didn’t want to waste daylight, because we were at a graveyard via Uber before I even knew where we were going.

“This is where she’s buried,” said Gladio, gesturing for me to lead the way.

It wasn’t as creepy as I had thought it would be. There were some old, super creepy graves, but for the most part it was normal. Nice. There were flowers at a lot of the graves, and even a few people walking around—I couldn’t tell if they were visiting graves or just on a walk—it was so normal.

Until Gladio started talking.

“She was buried with an unmarked grave, at first,” he said. I looked up to him but couldn’t get any real emotion from his face.

“Oh?” I asked, not sure what else to add there.

“It was too big a case,” said Gladio, and as we got closer to the spot, I could see why it was something they didn’t want the public finding in the middle of an ongoing investigation—-there was this small gravestone just absolutely _covered_ with flowers and stuffed animals and stuff. “People came out and tried to see the grave. They didn’t want it to become some sort of tourist trap.”

“How’d that work out?”

Gladio hadn’t warmed much to that, and he didn’t give more than a “heh.” Either the guy isn’t much into gallows humor and sarcasm, or he has a weird way of showing it.

It’s not like I was going to stop, though, because I was nervous as hell and even thought it was kept up, now that we were actually _at her grave_ , this place creeped me out.

Even Gladio had to remind me to do my job.

“Don’t you want to get a shot of this?”

“Shoot, yeah.”

Really smooth.

I took out my camera and took a few shots, but it was sort of tough to concentrate on what I was doing. It was all just more morbid than what I was used to, I guess.

It helped that Gladio was still recounting the circumstances of the burial.

He started with the headstone: “Aera Mirus Fleuret, born July 4, 1972, died October 4, 1990.” He paused after that. “That’s all they included, because they didn’t want to add anything that might fuel the sensationalization.” He gestured to the scene I was photographing—the grave and flowers and all that—and stepped back so he wouldn’t get in the way of what I was doing.

“She was killed on a clear night in October, and it being before Halloween and all, it got people scared.”

I was moving around to the back of the stone at this point, and I found some flowers that had gotten knocked or blown back there at some point, and had dried up and died. I snapped some at a low angle there, since I figured they would fit the whole gritty vibe of this project.

As I did, the sun caught Gladio pretty well and I snapped a few as he talked. He looked good from this angle, strong and stoic as he is, and it might serve as a good author pic in his bio or something.

“They put in the stone once the main media blitz had died down,” said Gladio when I came back around to the front of the stone again.

“And evidently it has.”

Gladio ignored me and continued: “But on the anniversary of the murder, or now—with the thirty years coming up, and all—it gets a lot more attention.”

“I kind of feel bad,” I said.

“Why?”

“It feels like we’re not giving Aera any peace.”

Gladio shook his head at this point, and he sort of stared at the headstone, as if he could concentrate hard enough and the flowers and stuffed animals and everything would just disappear.

“She won’t have any peace until this thing is solved.”

We left from there to get some grub at a local Italian place, which was pretty cool. A little more relaxed. Gladio’s a little bit more chill when he’s not in an airplane or a cemetery, I guess, though it could have had something to do with the sheer amount of pasta he consumed in that single sitting.

We’re going to interview some people tomorrow, so I guess we’ll see how it goes then.

## Text Conversation, That Night

Noct: o rly

Prompto: hes chill i guess, sort of intense

Noct: i think ive worked w him b4

Prompto: :0!

Noct: yea

Noct: he did a feature 4 me when he started out

Noct: fashion piece

Prompto: hes a model??

Noct: as a favor

Noct: he was b4

Noct: his dad knows mine idk

Noct: kinda busted my chops

Noct: cool tho

Prompto: yeah we went to a cemetery??

Prompto: but i got some good shots

Prompto: we start interviews 2mro

Noct: u interview well tho

Prompto: i guess. different style tho

Noct: tru tru

Noct: luna is here gtg

Prompto: tell her i said hi

Prompto: hi luna!!!!

Prompto: noct

Prompto: did u tell her

## Interview Transcript #1 (with Adryn Izunia)

**Gladiolus** : We’re here with—actually, could you introduce yourself?

**Ardyn** : Ardyn Izunia. I was—I was Aera’s boyfriend when… when she died.

**Gladiolus** : Thank you, Mr. Izunia. I appreciate you sitting down with us today. I know there have been quite a few interviews already.

**Ardyn** : These thirty years have been a lifetime.

**Gladiolus** : Yes, I can imagine so.

**Ardyn** : But I’m willing to talk about it again. If it might help.

**Gladiolus** : Yes, of course. And you refer to the recent attempts to re-open the case…?

**Ardyn** : The case never closed! They never…

**Gladiolus** : You’re right. I misspoke, my apologies.

**Ardyn** : But you are correct. We have been pushing recently to get the authorities to take Aera’s case on as an active investigation again.

**Gladiolus** : Please don’t fault me for asking, but what do you believe is different now from what it was thirty years ago?

**Ardyn** : The clarity of hindsight. Analysis of suspects’ behaviors. DNA testing…

**Gladiolus** : Some commentators suggest that you are pushing for a definitive end to the case because you’re trying to clear your name.

**Ardyn** : I… I’m an open book.

**Gladiolus** : And you were a suspect in the initial investigation. You were never completely cleared of suspicion.

**Ardyn** : No one was. It was a cold case.

**Gladiolus** : So the other suspects in this case…

**Ardyn** : Why are you asking questions you already know the answers to?

**Prompto** : Come on, man…

**Ardyn** : And who the hell even _are_ you?

**Prompto** : I’m the photographer.

**Ardyn** : Great. And how are those photos coming along? I haven’t heard a shutter.

**Gladiolus** : I feel like we’re straying off topic. Do you…

**Ardyn** : Actually, I would like to talk to this one for a moment. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I’ll get back to your questions.

**Prompto** : What?

**Ardyn** : There’s just something about you that seems… familiar. Have you been to this area before?

**Prompto** : No, I’ve lived my whole life in Sacramento. Farthest east I’ve gotten before was Colorado.

**Ardyn** : And no family out here?

**Prompto** : Actually, I never really—well, I had some foster parents along the way, but…

**Ardyn** : I understand. A self-made man. And…

**Gladiolus** : Hey, who’s interviewing who here?

**Ardyn** : We’re just enjoying a little exchange of information.

**Gladiolus** : Well, your “quid pro quo” is a little one-sided, Dr. Lecter.

**Ardyn** : No need to get defensive. And to get back to your earlier question—I told you I would get back to it, didn’t I?—none of the other suspects have done anything, either. Nothing to indicate—to the police, anyway—that they hold any more guilt than they did thirty years ago.

**Gladiolus** : But no less, either.

**Ardyn** : Exactly. And while there is much to still uncover about that night, I know eventually, they will—well, they _have_ to find out who it was.

**Gladiolus** : That actually brings me to my next question—can you tell me about that night?

**Ardyn** : Ah, now you’re getting to it.

**Prompto** : _Now_ is when I’m going to start taking pictures, by the way, so just, uh, ignore me.

**Ardyn** : I’ll do my best.  
But where to start?

**Gladiolus** : The beginning.

**Ardyn** : Spare me the cliches. If you write like you’re speaking, I’ll ask you from being a total hack at least while you’re describing me and my side of the story.  
That’s the main reason people see me as the villain in this story, you know? The way writers spin it.  
From the start. Of course, I was the first suspect the police locked onto, and for that I’m afraid I cannot blame them. It’s usually the romantic partner in crimes like these, eh? But when I was never cleared…  
Yes, Aera and I had been dating for just over two years when she was killed. We’d celebrated our anniversary with a picnic dinner at a community movie night in a local park, and it was some family movie—that isn’t what’s important. But what _is_ is that she was a classy girl, and sentimental nights like that, recreating our first date with a picnic in the park, the simple things—that was what she liked. That was the type of person she was.  
I remember the last time I saw her. She was wearing these overalls covered in paint, because she had just been down at the community center, working on a “unity mural” of some sort with some local kids. She had stopped by because she knew I had an overnight shift that night—I was a nurse at the time—and I hadn’t been feeling well over the prior few days.  
I just—a lot of the articles about this place leave out the details of _her_. They leave her as just a _body_. That’s all anyone ever seems to see in her, and…  
Like I said, I was at work that night. I had been feeling a little under the weather—that was why Aera had stopped by before, of course—and after I could not stop coughing while trying to sanitize a wound for stitches, the floor supervisors sent me home for the rest of the night. When I got home, I took some cough syrup and went directly to bed.  
Ahem.  
I didn’t wake until I was pulled out of bed at four AM by the police. They didn’t tell me much, only that Aera was dead.

**Gladiolus** : And then…?

**Ardyn** : And then they questioned me and released me after about six or seven hours of questioning.

**Gladiolus** : And did you live with anyone at the time?

**Ardyn** : No. My brother had lived with me, for a time, but had moved out for a new apartment in the city proper just a few months before all of this. So I lived alone.

**Gladiolus** : So you have no solid alibi.

**Ardyn** : No. But you must have known that already.

**Gladiolus** : I did.

**Ardyn** : So why are you wasting my time by asking me again?

**Gladiolus** : Because I’m trying to be thorough. You said you were at the hospital for some of your shift—how long were you there?

**Ardyn** : My shift that night started at seven-thirty—because Aera had stopped by at six or so, not wanting to tie me up on my way out of the door. I didn’t check the clock _per se_ when I left the hospital, but it must have been before eleven.

**Gladiolus** : And, of course, people saw you leave the hospital.

**Ardyn** : I was not invisible, no. Though I was in the midst of a coughing fit, so I hardly stopped to greet each person I saw.

**Gladiolus** : And was there anything else you noticed that might have stood out as strange or different—about Aera or anything else—that might help us better put together this story?

**Ardyn** : Nothing I haven’t told the police or reporters already at some point over the last thirty years.

**Gladiolus** : I can’t express how much we appreciate you taking to us, Mr. Izunia.

**Ardyn** : The pleasure—what are you doing?

**Prompto** : Sorry, sorry. I tripped on the side table when I was stepping over and I—

**Ardyn** : A word of advice to the both of you: tread carefully.  
 _Especially_ if you’re clumsy.

**Gladiolus** : Right.  
You have our contact information if there is anything else you think we need to know. Thank you again, Mr. Izunia.

**Ardyn** : I look forward to reading your findings, Mr. Amicitia.

## Text Conversation

Prompto: the guy we just interviewed creeps me tf out

Noct: o?

Prompto: idk

Prompto: trying not to judge

Prompto: but

Noct: he makes it easy 2 judge?

Prompto: so easy


	3. Chapter 3

## Interview Transcript #2 (with Titus Drautos)

**Gladiolus** : Hello, yeah, and if you could just—

**Titus** : Into the microphone?

**Gladiolus** : As best as you can, yeah. It helps later, just in case I want to quote you directly. Don’t want to misinterpret what you’re saying.

**Titus** : I understand.

**Gladiolus** : Can you start by introducing yourself?

**Titus** : Of course. My name is Officer Titus Drautos, and I was the chief investigator in the Fleuret case when she was first killed.

**Prompto** : And you aren’t anymore?

**Titus** : …  
I retired. Thirty years is a long time.

**Gladiolus** : That being said, we were hoping that your hindsight might be able to shed new light on what we know about Aera Fleuret’s murder.

**Titus** : I can tell you this: I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that girl since the night we found her.

**Gladiolus** : I know it is a painful memory, but do you mind bringing us back to that night?

**Titus** : I—well, yeah, I can.  
It wasn’t a particularly busy night on the whole. We picked up a drunk or two, plus there was a false alarm of a breaking-and-entering, but that was just the neighbors’ dog, who had come in through a backdoor someone had left open.  
When we got the call for Fleuret, though—that was something different. We sort of knew it, right? There was this _feeling_ that this wasn’t a good situation.  
The neighbors had called it in. Old couple. They had been awoken when they heard screaming and a crash next door. That was the vase, maybe, or the window. But it frightened them, and they called it in.  
So we went down there—another deputy and I—and we immediately could feel how _still_ everything was, like somebody’d hit “pause” on a remote.  
So we go inside—I mean, we knock first, and we don't see anyone or hear anyone. But when I went around the back of the house, I could see that someone had forced entry. We busted in, and everything was dark, but then there was a light on in the living room. It was a lamp that had been on the side table, and it had been knocked over. The angle it was at, lopsided with the shade like that and all, it cast shadows around the room in these creepy, creepy proportions.

**Gladiolus** : Are you sure you need to…

**Titus** : I’m not embellishing, I’m telling it how it was. And you probably think I’m adding this in afterward, hindsight making it creepier or something like that—that isn’t why I’m telling you this stuff. I want you to understand why Aera’s case is just so damn haunting.  
She was the next thing we found. Halfway down the stairs, at all the wrong angles… The skirt she was wearing was all a mess, and you could see the way her femur was broken right away. Her arms over her head, which was battered, too, and the…  
Well, you probably have the details of the wounds already—there’s no reason for me to get gratuitous. But I’ve seen things during my time on the force, and seeing the body in the state she was left was just… It was something different altogether.  
An upstairs window, at the end of the hallway between the doors to the master bedroom and the bathroom, was broken outward, and we found pieces of glass outside the house. A side table with a vase of flowers was knocked over, too, and we concluded that this was likely the result of a struggle in the upstairs hallway. Her defensive wounds point in that direction, as well.

**Gladiolus** : And you took in Ardyn Izunia as your first suspect?

**Titus** : That shifty bastard? Of course.

**Gladiolus** : Were they any other immediate suspects that came up in your investigation?

**Titus** : Well, we actually investigated Izunia, and we took a look at this guy Gilgamesh down at the community center where Fleuret worked. He had been with her earlier in the day at some function.

**Gladiolus** : Function?

**Titus** : Yeah, some sort of fundraiser. Gilgamesh was a security guard there, but I think he did martial arts classes for the kids sometimes, too. I don’t know if I’d have let him, though, because he had a creepy energy around him, too.

**Gladiolus** : And what was Ms. Fleuret’s cause of death?

**Titus** : At first, we thought it was blunt trauma, judging by the state of her head and body. The wounds were both pre- and post-mortem, however, and the patterns of bruising around her neck indicate that she was probably strangled— _throttled_ —to death, and that the attacker continued to attack her after death…

**Prompto** : Jesus…

**Titus** : It’s intense, yeah.

**Gladiolus** : There was no evidence of where the murderer had gone?

**Titus** : No. There were no footprints in the garden or fingerprints out of the ordinary—Izunia is a suspect, yes, but he was her boyfriend, and we’d expect his fingerprints to be all over her house.

**Prompto** : Well, who do you think did it?

**Titus** : What?

**Gladiolus** : Prompto, no, we can’t—

**Titus** : No, no. The question is bold, but I like it. My bets are on one of these two main suspects, but as you can tell from the lack of formal charges, we never got that far in the investigation.

**Prompto** : And there isn't one guy that you want for it?

**Titus** : I don’t much _like_ any of the people we’ve investigated for this murder, but I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t be glad to see Izunia’s smug face go down for all of this.

**Gladiolus** : Thank you for meeting with us today, Mr. Drautos.

**Titus** : But I really just want justice to be served.

**Gladiolus** : Of course.  
Prompto’s going to get some photos before we leave, but if you think of anything else that might be useful to us and our article, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You have my contact information.

**Titus** : And you both remember that I told you everything as it happened. Just like I’ve done for many others in the past.

**Gladiolus** : Of course, thank you.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 18)

Apparently, that Drautos guy has one hell of a history. Gladio was telling me about it on our way back to the hotel basically as soon as we finished up with the interview. I sort of wish he had told me before, but he said he hadn’t because I would have “acted weird.”

I mean, he’s probably right, but still. It doesn’t change that I was annoyed.

So Drautos had been the lead investigator, the guy in charge of the whole Aera Fleuret case. He was the one organizing manhunts, he was the one who was organizing all the evidence, and he was the one who, I don’t know, kept everything rolling on the investigation. And when the media frenzy around the case really got going, he was the one in front of the camera.

And this made sense a little bit, because he was an important part of the investigation and why not have him be the one to talk about it?

But then he had spent more time on TV than he had actually working on the case.

And he was way too comfortable talking about what happened that night.

“Notice he didn’t mention the third major suspect in the case,” said Gladio as we pulled into the hotel parking lot.

“Who is it?” I asked, of course.

“He is,” said Gladio as he got out of the Uber. “But obviously he wasn’t going to advertise that to us, as we’re putting together a new narrative for a potentially new audience.”

“What?”

“Think about _Making a Murderer_ ,” he said. “Steven Avery was in that documentary and suddenly the world says he’s innocent.”

“He wants us to make him look good.”

“That’ll depend on how well your photos come out,” said Gladio as he slipped the keycard through the slot and held open the hotel door for me. “But while his story he told us has the same contents as the one he told thirty years ago, it has a _totally_ different tone.”

I don’t know. It’s sort of a wild situation, but I don’t know if I believe Drautos or not. He wasn’t exactly trustworthy, but a murderer? He looked like he didn’t have the constitution for it.

“But we still have more to figure out,” said Gladio. He was trying to put my mind at ease, I guess, so I just shrugged.

At this point, he slipped off his jacket and began to unbutton his shirt. “I’m headed down to the gym,” he said. “I process my thoughts better when I’m moving.”

Or, at least, that’s what I think he was saying. I sort of lost my focus, because he was taking off his shirt, revealing not only his _absolutely ripped_ body, but a huge tattoo of an eagle across his back.

And after I picked up my jaw from the floor, I understood why Noct might have had him on as a model.

He pulled on a tank top before rummaging around to make sure he had his wallet and key card on him.

“I want to think about how Izunia and Drautos connect,” he said. “Or, their stories do.” He shook his head, and moved toward the door. He’d pulled on some athletic shorts at some point, but I’d been so busy looking at the individual feathers on his shoulders and arms that I must not have noticed.

“Yeah,” I said, but I’m not sure if it was something else he was looking for me to say there. He hesitated by the door for a moment before leaving me.

I guess I need to, um…

Work on the pictures.

Yeah.

## Text Conversation

Prompto: u never said he was HOT

Noct: he was a model

Noct: i thought ud kno

Prompto: yeah well

Noct: plus uve been w him 4 3 days

Noct: how r u just realizin now

Prompto: he just

Prompto: alsjf;alsdkjf

Noct: verbose

Prompto: just bc he was a model doesnt mean

Noct: u were a model 4 me once

Prompto: my point rests

Noct: >:V

Noct: stop. no.

Noct: strict no ugly rule in my column

Noct: u kno this

Prompto: thanks noct

Noct: ur right he is hot tho

Prompto: RIGHT??

Prompto: a;lsdkfj;asldkjfla


	4. Chapter 4

## Obituary (Pulled from _Washington Post_ , Dated April 4, 2005)

Bryan Gilgamesh of Baltimore, Maryland died Wednesday after a battle with lung cancer.

Gilgamesh is remembered as a public servant, working with the local community center of Laurel, Maryland. His work there as a martial arts instructor made him well-loved in the community.

His contributions are well remembered, and fondly looked back on.

No services will be held.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 19)

I’m pretty sure that Gladio is trying to kill me.

I mean, not _literally_ , but…

Maybe he just doesn’t understand how hot he actually is.

And it is at such odds with his personality, he just…

Anyway.

We spent the day visiting the different key places for the story. The cemetery we had taken care of, but we visited a few others, too. For one, the community center where Aera had worked.

Here was where he told me that Gilgamesh was dead, which meant that we weren’t going to get much more information in that direction. But a picture of the community center would serve well as a backdrop for some of the article, where Gladio talked about the day before and Gilgamesh’s part in all of it.

And of course, the part I went to focus on was the mural.

Gladio confirmed for me that it must have been the one that Aera had helped with thirty years ago. He’d seen it in the background of photos from early articles.

I was able to find out _for sure_ when I found her name in with the signatures of all the kids who had helped paint it.

I snapped a shot of the signatures, of course, but I got a few shots of other details, as well. There was a dinosaur a kid had crudely drawn, plus a fair number of flowers and trees—and I guess every little kid has a tree-drawing phase, right?

There were some dogs, and some crude stick figure children, with those hands that little kids draw that are just a circle with five lines for fingers.

And there was one, a lady stick figure judging by her hair and dress, and I asked Gladio, “D’you think that’s Aera?”

We both squinted at it for a minute before deciding that whatever it really was or not, it would make one hell of a visual for the article. I got a few pictures of it before we moved on.

It was at this point that I realized something that I hadn’t thought of before.

“She’s wearing a dress in this painting,” I said.

“Yeah?” asked Gladio.

“Yeah, and Drautos said she was wearing a skirt when she was found.”

“Yeah, she was.”

“But the last time she was seen alive, according to Izunia, was in her overalls.”

“Well, she might have…”

“But what if she didn’t? What if there was no event? I mean, Izunia didn’t mention it, and why would they have been working on the mural the same day there was supposed to be a fundraiser? Wouldn't they need to, I don’t know, set up or something?

“Okay, so we need to look into it,” said Gladio. I couldn't tell if he was proud or annoyed.

From there, we went to the house. Gladio had called ahead to the current owners, but they had asked that we not take pictures inside of their house. They did, however, give permission to take exterior shots.

I think Gladio was upset we weren’t going to be able to go inside. Disappointed. He pouted a little.

I don’t think he noticed that I noticed, but I did.

Personally, I’m glad that we didn’t go inside. I mean, as soon as we arrived at the house, I was just imagining what Drautos had said about her murder, about just how terrible and brutal it really was. And I know it’s been 30 years, but it still—

I didn’t want to go in there.

I _would_ have, if I had to. I would have had Gladio with me, at least.

But I was scared.

I mean, me writing that sort of stuff is the whole reason why I have this journal anyway, right?

We walked around the whole house, and as we did, Gladio was sure to point out the window that had been broken—it faced the house Gladio said the neighbors called 911 from.

There is a newish fiberglass window there that can’t be more than five to ten years old at this point, with a vine-covered lattice that nearly obscured the rest of that side of the house.

Then we went to the back, and it was a little weird because people _live_ there, and they use the backyard. But I _did_ want a picture of the back door, which had been broken in, according to what Drautos had said.

It opened directly into the backyard, after two steps down. The backyard itself had a swing set and a slide. Kids live here.

I snapped the pictures and went to the driveway to wait. I think that Gladio wanted to go to the homeowners and see one last time if we could take pictures inside, but I had already called an Uber at that point.

Gladio didn’t say anything about it, but we went back to the hotel for a minute before we went to the Starbucks down the street to get some work done.

He started to type away at _something_ , but I just began to cycle through the pictures that I’d taken since we’d arrived. It was much different than the work I would do for “People on the Street,” that’s for sure. From gravestones to possible murderers to potentially haunted houses—it was chilling.

The picture of Aera as painted by the kids in the mural—that really got me. What was all of this like for _them_? Where were they now?

It would make an interesting interview. I should mention it to Gladio.

And I was brought out of my thinking when Gladio spoke up.

“You have any pictures of the back steps?” he asked.

“What, the back door?” I asked. I was already clicking back through my collection. “Yeah, of course. I—”

“No, like the steps below the door,” he said, getting up to stand behind me so that he could see the screen. I could feel how close he was, and I could feel my heartbeat quicken. Why? I don’t know. I guess I was nervous because ultimately this was _his_ article and I didn’t want my photos to be bad so that he wouldn’t want to include them, or so that they would drag the whole article’s credibility down.

But I swiped through the different photos in the folder I’d created until his hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed.

“There.”

The photo I stopped on was the rear of the house, and it was zoomed out enough that you could see the whole of the back door, its frame, the wall around it, and apparently most importantly to Gladio, it featured the ground at the bottom of the steps, at least a couple of feet off.

“That’s it.”

“What is?”

He leaned in closer, and I could really feel his weight on my shoulder. He pointed to the screen, almost touching it.

“What?”

“There’s no back patio.”

“No,” I said, “there isn’t.” I turned toward him, and his face was right next to mine. He didn’t seem to notice, but I quickly looked right back to the computer screen.

“But look there.” He pointed again. “There’s a gutter whose waterspout comes out right here. Which means this area—” He gestured at the dirt spot underneath the little step to the back door. “—must nearly always be muddy.”

“Yeah,” I said. I wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

“And the things Drautos said—like I said, he’s consistent with his details. I think we can trust most of his details. And one of them was that the back door was broken in, but that there were no footprints.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything.”

“There are your footprints—high tops. Converse.” That _was_ what I was wearing. “And these are mine.” He pointed to a deeper indentation in the dirt. “And some others. It’s impossible to not leave a track there.”

“So that means…”

“Either the print of the killer was just Drautos’s, _or_ the person who did this didn’t really break in, but wanted to make it look like they did.”

“Wow.”

Gladio stood upright and crossed his arms, beaming. “Yeah.”

“Doesn’t really narrow down the field of suspects, though, does it?” I asked, squinting in at the mud. “Everyone who was a suspect had a reason they might have been there. That’s why it makes sense why Izunia’s fingerprints are all over everything.”

“Yeah,” said Gladio. “But now we know that someone wanted to cover this whole thing up—if it wasn’t Drautos. And if it _was_ Drautos, that means that we’ve caught him in a lie.”

He was so excited, it made him seem almost younger or smaller than he actually was. Almost cute.

So we continued to work after that, he on trying to find any new inconsistencies in the interviews and in older articles and reports, and me starting to sort and edit photos.

We got into such a rhythm, losing track of time, and it wasn’t long—or at least, it didn’t _seem_ like long—before the Starbucks was closing up, and we headed back to the hotel. There, we ordered in some pizza—and I was glad to find that Gladio also likes his pizza loaded with every topping imaginable—and continued to work.

We chatted intermittently while we worked, but I don’t feel like I need to record every little thing we said here. But it was pleasant in a way that I don’t know, I guess I didn’t expect it to be. I like working with Gladio.

I don’t know.

But when it had hit 11:00 or so, we’d both finished all of our pizza and most of our work—that was when Gladio attempted to kill me in earnest.

I’d just finished touching up a photo of the grave so that its color balance would match that of the photo of the house. Gladio yawned, and it was contagious enough that I yawned, too.

We made eye contact and both sort of laughed before Gladio yawned again almost immediately, as if he’d caught it from me.

“I’m about to hit the hay,” he said, stretching his arms wide.

I nodded. “Yeah, I guess I will, too.”

I got up and started to move around the cushions so that I could pull out the pull-out.

“Wait,” he said. I looked to Gladio, and I could _swear_ that he almost blushed. “There’s plenty of room in the bed, if you wanted to…”

He trailed off, and I found myself suddenly at a loss for words.

I mean, it _was_ more comfortable than the pull-out, and he was probably just returning the favor of me offering the bed to him initially, but when he looked like _that_ and just…

Yeah.

So I slept in the same bed as him.

Took me an extra hour or two to actually _sleep_ , because I was aware of his presence (oh man does he run warm—I could feel it through the sheet. He slept below and I slept on top of the sheet, you know, for professional distance).

But yeah.

God, I’m blushing _thinking_ about it.

It’s so stupid. I’m not 13, I shouldn’t feel so silly.

But he is trying to kill me, without a doubt.

## Prompto’s Blog

Things have been wild, y’all!

The new job has been _very_ different from what I’m used to, but it’s been very cool to try out new things!

There is a new “People on the Street” coming out in a day or two in the newest issue of _Cutting Edge_ , so keep an eye out for it! Just because the column won’t be continuing in the future doesn’t mean that I don’t have a few that I’ve already done that are ready to go! I think that there will be two or three more coming out before it closes up shop forever.

And I’ve been East Coast living! Well, travelling. I won’t give away much more about my assignment, but I will say that I’m waaaaaaay closer to the Atlantic than the Pacific, and it's cool to see the way that the other side of the country lives.

Well, they live pretty much the same, but…

Anyway, thanks always for the support and keep an eye on this space for new news AND at _Cutting Edge_ for both my last few “People on the Streets”s as well as my new project!

## Clipping from the Upcoming Issue of _Cutting Edge_

_Photo of a man in his mid-30s with dyed silver hair, meticulously coiffed. He grins mischievously, the flint in his eyes standing out against his pale complexion. He’s dressed sharply, but his tie is loosened and the sleeves of his sport jacket are rolled up just a bit in a clearly styled attempt to look casual. He’s smirking, and holding one arm up as if he’s midway through a sales pitch on a bustling city sidewalk._

“No, so listen: people think, ‘hey, I can just get any diamond and polish it up and I’ll be good to go.’ But that isn’t it. There’s thinking. Planning. You have to sort through a lot of grime and grit to get to the good ones. Even then, you have so many facets and details to reckon with. Down to the _molecules_ , man! You want it perfect. But when you find the one with flaws that work just right for you—bam! That’s when a diamond’s priceless.”


	5. Chapter 5

## Text Conversation

Noct: did u kno the dead lady was lunas 2nd cousin or smth

Prompto: ???

Prompto: wat???

Noct: like they never met obvi

Noct: but yeah

Prompto: i noticed the same name but

Prompto: wow

Noct: yea

Noct: she is no help

Noct: wait

Noct: she says she is sum help

Noct: just not w ur article

Prompt: tell her i love her

Noct: yea well

Noct: she says she thinks ardyn did it

Noct: or wait

Noct: her family does

Prompto: oh ok cool!!

Noct: like dont go into them or

Noct: u kno, privacy etc

Noct: but yea

Prompto: well check it out

Prompto: w discretion

Noct: B]

Prompto: so gladio was a model?

Noct: B3c

Prompto: nevrmind

Noct: >B3c

Prompto: !!

## Interview Transcript #3 (with Ardyn Izunia) via Speakerphone

**Gladiolus** : Thank you for speaking with us again. We just had some follow-up questions after talking to you the other day.

**Ardyn** : Like I said, I just want the truth. And if talking to you again is a way to get to it, I’ll do it.

**Gladiolus** : Right. And I do want to let you know, because you can’t see it—we’re recording right now.

**Ardyn** : Naturally. And your little photographer friend is with you, too, I presume?

**Prompto** : I’m here, yeah. And I only look small next to Gladio, but everyone—

**Gladiolus** : Just a few questions is all.

**Ardyn** : Of course.

**Gladiolus** : We have been following up on some of the things you told us about and wanted to get some details to follow up on ever further to fill out the article.  
You said the last time you saw Aera, you were seeing her off before you went to work, and she had been just painting at the community center.

**Ardyn** : Yes, she had—she’d checked in on me before my shift because I hadn’t been feeling well.

**Gladiolus** : Yes. And you said that was the early evening, around six or so?

**Ardyn** : Yes, around there—I think I know where you’re going with this.

**Gladiolus** : Oh?

**Ardyn** : About the fundraiser that night? I didn’t know anything about it. Apparently a black-tie event, I don’t know.

**Prompto** : She hadn’t told you about it?

**Ardyn** : When we talked about her work at the center, we mainly spoke of her work with the kids. She was… She was humble in a way that most people can’t aspire to be. I donated to the center, of course—but she never asked me to, or expected me to.

**Gladiolus** : So was there a lot of fundraising there, or was it well-covered in terms over funding?

**Ardyn** : Mostly they relied on donations from one or two letter-writing campaigns a year, plus tax supplements, that bit of government funding to keep it a government supported not-for-profit.

**Gladiolus** : Hm. Excuse me, I was just taking a note—I wanted to ask about Aera’s house.

**Ardyn** : Yes?

**Gladiolus** : Did you spend much time there?

**Ardyn** : That isn't the most imaginative question I’ve gotten from you, Amicitia. I have to say that I expected better.  
But…  
Of course I did.

**Gladiolus** : Hm.

**Prompto** : Was it a shoes-on or shoes-off house?

**Ardyn** : Oh?

**Prompto** : When you went in—was it polite to take off your shoes or to keep them on?

**Ardyn** : Shoes off, but—I have to say…  
Amicitia, your plucky photographer is looking for the sordid details in your article.

**Gladiolus** : It’s the little details that make it.

**Ardyn** : But Aera was a neat person. She kept things clean. She scolded me more than a few times for tracking dirt into her house. I can only imagine what she was like with the bunch of kids she worked with, trying to keep them all organized and clean…  
Sorry, I…

**Gladiolus** : Of course.  
…

**Ardyn** : I’m fine, thank you. But I must ask—how is this going to build into your story?

**Gladiolus** : Trying to paint a picture with words. We aren’t going to show crime scene photographs to try to explain what Aera’s life was like before the murder.

**Ardyn** : I do… appreciate you taking the time to focus on her as a person.

**Gladiolus** : Of course. And if you’ll excuse me for being personal, but were you a clean-house person like she was?

**Prompto** : I know I’m not.

**Ardyn** : When So—well, no, I am not as tidy as Aera. She liked to tease me about it, and…

**Gladiolus** : ...and?

**Ardyn** : What else do you need to know?

**Gladiolus** : There’s your actions in the media afterward, your—well, your firing, and…

**Ardyn** : I’ve dealt with the fallout of this case before, and…

**Gladiolus** : You can’t escape it.

**Ardyn** : I can’t. Which is why I need this to be solved. For the truth to come out. For Aera, of course, always. But also for me.  
And don’t you dare print that to make me sound selfish, Amicitia. I know your magazine has at least a little more integrity than that.

**Gladiolus** : …  
Thank you.

**Ardyn** : Ah…  
Thank you.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 20)

I don’t remember whose idea it was to look up Ardyn’s brother, but I bet it was probably Gladio. I mean, I realize he doesn’t look it at first, but he’s always thinking somewhere under that broad forehead of his.

When we hung up with Ardyn, it was kind of awkward. Ardyn creeps me out—when we first met him, he’d fixed his eyes on me like some sort of predatory jungle cat does its prey. But even on the phone, calling me “that little photographer…”

Ugh.

But I still feel for him. Maybe not as much as I would if he was less creepy, but still. He lost his girlfriend, and then he lost the rest of his life, too.

It started when Gladio sent me some of the articles from the initial press coverage of Aera’s murder. There was one that went hard on Izunia, even after he’d let himself be interviewed. It was pretty clear the writer had him pegged as the perp.

“Perp.” Is that actual crime lingo, or just in bad cop shows?

I’ll have to ask Gladio.

But in it, they had pictures of Ardyn in his apartment, and I could see what he had been talking about on the phone. It wasn’t that it was _dirty_ , but it was cluttered, things weren’t put away, there were stacks of books and a pile of clothes in the living room behind him.

I mean, you could really see that he lived there and Aera didn’t.

But…

I must have made a comment about it, because Gladio came over to peer at it over my shoulder.

“Hmm,” he said. “I asked him about that because—well, I wanted to know if he’d be conscious of taking off his shoes or tracking mud into her house.”

“The back steps.”

“Exactly. But—wait.”

He went to get his computer, and spent a minute just flicking through tabs, his brow furrowing, as he concentrated on the screen.

“Look,” he said, and held up the screen so I could see.

As he held up his computer, I could see that it was a scan from an older article, maybe from the first year or two after Aera’s murder. However, it was clear to see that this had been taken before the one we’d just been looking at. Ardyn and Aera sat in his apartment—a different angle, of course, than we’d seen in the other picture, but still definitely his—and it seemed so normal.

With her, Ardyn seemed way less creepy.

But we could tell that it was not from the same time as the other picture because it was _clean_.

“Why is it so clean?” I asked.

“Maybe Aera cleaned it?” Gladio offered.

“Maybe…” I said. “But _would_ she? She didn’t later.”

“Hm…”

“Wait…”

“Yeah?”

“Didn’t he say he used to live with his brother?”

Or maybe he was the one who had brought it up.

In any case, we then spent the next half hour or so tracking down his brother.

And this is where it got difficult. Izunia had mentioned his brother, but he hadn’t mentioned a name.

It was after the half hour that we were able to find an early interview with Ardyn in a local paper’s online archive that mentioned his brother’s name. Somnus.

But there was no Somnus Izunia in any database we could search. Phone book, city hall tax records…

It was as if this guy had just _disappeared_.

“Kind of a weird name though, right?’ I asked, lying back on the semi-made bed and staring at the ceiling.

“It is very weird,” he said. His brow was furrowed again, squinting at something on his screen.

“But I guess everyone’s got something from their parents,” I said. “Some sort of strange naming, or something… I mean, my name is ‘Prompto.’” I shook my head, feeling my hair crumple against the duvet. “At least your name’s a flower.”

“You know that?”

“What, your name?” I looked across the room to him. “Dude, we’ve been in the same room together for a few days now, you’d better _hope_ I’d learned your name by now.”

“No, I mean that I’m named after the flower.” He was looking at me now, his brown eyes deep.

“I, um—” I swallowed. “Yeah. I’m sorry, was I not supposed to?”

“No, it’s just, uh—not many people actually think about it. It’s a, uh—strange name.”

And I swear I almost saw this solid personification of a CrossFit gym flush as he turned back to his computer screen.

“Wait,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“I know why we haven’t found him. His name.”

“Yeah?”

“He doesn’t call himself Izunia.”

“What?”

“ _Ardyn’s_ name is Izunia,” said Gladio. “That’s why we’re looking for Somnus Izunia. But he doesn't have the same last name.”

“What?”

“In the 90s, Somnus changed his last name, in an effort to separate himself from the publicity surrounding his brother.”

“What? Wait, how do you know?”

Gladio got up from the chair and crossed to the bed. I sat up as he settled in—right next to me.

“Look—do you see this?”

I read where he was pointing. “Somnus Lucis, House of Representatives?”

“I think this is our guy. He kept coming up when I searched for ‘Somnus.’”

“Yeah, me too,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean…”

“His district isn’t far from here, and I can’t find any pre-1995 mention of him.”

“At all?”

“At all.”

So tomorrow, we’re headed to an appointment we made with a sitting member of congress to confront him about his possibly-a-murderer brother, from whom he’s been estranged for almost thirty years. So that’ll be fun.

## Text Conversation

Prompto: noct!!!

Prompto: noct??!

Prompto: n

Prompto: o

Prompto: c

Noctis: wat

Prompto: t

Noctis: give me a sec 2 respond

Prompto: he

Noctis: ?

Prompto: SPOONED ME

Prompto: a;soldjfpoasdjfjas;lkjea

Noctis: o?

Prompto: i dont think on purpose

Prompto: but

Noctis: 👀

Prompto: i didnt stop him

Noctis: >:3c

Prompto: as;ldfkjaspfiojsl

## Interview Transcript #4 (with Rep. Somnus Lucis)

**Gladiolus** : Congressman, you don’t mind if we record this, do you?

**Somnus** : No, of course not. Go ahead.

**Gladiolus** : Thank you.

**Somnus** : I must say that I am grateful that you’ve come to talk to me about my anti-drug initiative. I am flattered that a national publication has decided to share my perspective.

**Gladiolus** : Of course! We understand that the bill is going to make some big changes—some of the largest since the War on Drugs, if my research is correct—

**Somnus** : That it is.

**Gladiolus** : Ah—and we know that you have largely led the push for this legislation. And you drafted the bill, as well, yes?

**Somnus** : I did, though it has gone through a few minor revisions in committee. I am proud of what we’ve been able to put together.

**Gladiolus** : And can you tell us a bit about how you plan on expanding the legislation as you’ve described in the bill?

**Somnus** : Of course. What the public needs to know is that this is an initiative that will take dangerous people off of the street and keep us all safe. There are more and more arrests in communities that have never had a problem with drugs before, and we aim to take gangs and criminals out of our neighborhoods by making our response to those who would cause problems with our own lives and safety much harsher. We will install more patrolmen to monitor criminal activity. I’m talking about putting junkies behind bars, where they can’t hurt any innocent citizens. 

**Gladiolus** : And what would you say to the bill’s opponents, who claim that this is a repeat of the ‘War on Drugs,’ that it’ll overfill our prisons and stop people from getting the help they—

**Somnus** : The people who need help are those whose lives are being disrupted by drug dealers and violence, even in suburban communities.

**Prompto** : Actually, speaking of violence…

**Gladiolus** : Wait…

**Somnus** : Oh? I wasn’t aware you were conducting this interview, Mr. …?

**Prompto** : ...Argentum.

**Somnus** : Argentum. Hm. Well, I was just saying to Mr. Amicitia here that the type of people who bring drugs into our communities also bring violence…

**Gladiolus** : And what of people struggling with addiction? How will this bill help those who are harmed by this disease that…?

**Somnus** : I must remind you that possession of narcotics is a crime.

**Gladiolus** : Of course, and I—

**Prompto** : But let’s get back to the violence.

**Gladiolus** : Prompto!

**Somnus** : What exactly are you getting at?

**Prompto** : I—

**Gladiolus** : What my photographer here is trying to do is jump ahead of me in the logical progression of questions. I was going to ask you…

**Somnus** : I’m a grown man. I don’t need to be buttered up before you get to the tough questions.

**Gladiolus** : I— Well.  
What I want to ask you actually doesn’t have anything to do with the bill, which is why I was saving it for later. But…  
We were wondering if you could give us a bit of perspective on your brother.

**Somnus** : My brother? I think you must be mistaken—

**Prompto** : Ardyn Izunia.

**Somnus** : I—

**Gladiolus** : You can see now why maybe we would have liked to work our way to this, Prompto.

**Somnus** : How did you—?

**Gladiolus** : It took some digging, but we were hoping to get some better perspective of what his life was like before Aera Fleuret’s murder. And we know you lived with him, so we were just hoping to get a more intimate picture of his life—we can leave your name out of the article entirely—

**Somnus** : You are not here to talk about the bill at all.

**Gladiolus** : We were going to forward your comments to one of our political columnists. But we are working primarily on a retrospective…

**Somnus** : Oh God,—it had been thirty years, hasn’t it?

**Gladiolus** : So you’ll speak with us about it?

**Somnus** : I won’t be speaking with you about _anything_ , particularly after you entered this office under false pretenses. And I will _not_ be included anywhere in your article. I would not want to force your publication to face a public defamation suit…

**Prompto** : What are you so afraid of? That your brother killed Aera? That you know it, and her murder might be connected back to you, ruining your shitty career—

**Gladiolus** : Prompto!

**Prompto** : —and stop you from pushing your outdated and cruel policies.

**Somnus** : You do _not_ speak of Aera like that!

**Prompto** : …

**Somnus** : I think this is your time to leave. Your editors will be hearing from my lawyer.

**Gladiolus** : Th—  
You know what? I look forward to finding out what you’re really afraid of.

**Somnus** : Boy, you don’t know what true fear is.

**Gladiolus** : Prompto, no. Let’s go.


	6. Chapter 6

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 1)

So.

Noct is the reason I’m writing this, I guess. I mean, he wasn’t the one who told me to write in the journal, but he’s…

He’s really been there for me. I’m so grateful.

I don’t know what I did to deserve a friend like him.

He dropped everything and came down to help me out. Brought Luna, too. They were…

I’m really glad they were there.

But I guess saying things like that is the whole reason I have this journal, right? To express my feelings. Write them out so that things can make sense.

But none of it makes sense.

I don’t think I want it to, either.

There are just some things you—you can’t prepare for.

Noct said I should take a week or two off of work, but I won’t. I don’t want to. This gives me something else to think about. Something else to do.

But the therapist said I should write down my feelings, and I guess here they are.

Sad. Lonely. But I feel bad about that because I have Noct and Luna here for me, and I’m lucky to have such good friends and a good job and

I don’t know. Yeah.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 21)

Oh shit.

So I think Gladio is pissed at me, but also I think he doesn’t blame me? It’s hard to tell.

I can say that I don’t think Rep. Lucis is going to allow in any interviews for a while. And maybe ( _maybe_ ) I could have had a little more chill in there.

But that guy was a huge jerk, so…

We were both pretty quiet in the Uber back, and I pretended that I was looking at the shots I’d gotten at the interview.

At some point, I’m sure Gladio figured out that I didn’t take that many photos.

But what he was talking about, it just got under my skin. The way he…

But his reaction when we mentioned Aera, that was something. I mean, we knew that he knew her, but that was more of a reaction that would be in line with him covering up his connection to a suspected murderer.

He has more connection to this than he’s letting on, I know it. Or, well, I think.

But even if we didn’t get everything we really wanted from the interview, I think we’re still in a good position. Ardyn must be more a part of this than he is letting on. And if Somnus doesn't want to talk about it—he’s hiding something. Which means he must know something.

Gladio is still not talking to me, though, so I’m not sure where _we_ stand. He went off to check with some records at the community center, see if they had any details that might clear up the inconsistencies.

He didn’t ask me to go with him.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 3)

Dr. Gentiana said that I was avoiding the hurt when I told her about my journal. She said I didn’t need to share it, but I offered to read it for her. It was embarrassing, but I figure if I’m going to see her, I might as well go all-in. Get my money’s worth, or whatever.

I mean, I had written about my feelings, and she said that was great. But I hadn’t “confronted my feelings” and what happened.

Aren’t my feelings enough?

Noct and Luna left the other day. I asked Luna if she would stay, but then Noct was all like “why didn’t you ask me?” and I had to explain that he’s only _almost_ as pretty as Luna, and so if I had to choose…

I think they left thinking I’m okay.

I mean, I’m going to keep seeing Dr. Gentiana, because at least I have some more sessions already scheduled.

But…

I don’t know. Without the two of them here, my apartment is suddenly too empty again. And…

But I’m going to be publishing a few park shots for a feature in _Cutting Edge_ this week as well as the column, so there’s something there, and I’ll… I’ll look forward to that, I guess.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 22)

I don’t normally write first thing in the morning, but—

Oh, what the hell, I’m supposed to let out all of my feelings here, right? Well I like it when the big guy’s arm wraps around me when he’s asleep.

I mean, I know he’s not doing it on purpose—the “no homo” sheet trick, where he was on top and I was below the sheet, didn't stop him from rolling over and full-on spooning me.

And I like it, okay?

Yes, I do realize that I’m not being questioned by my journal and I also don’t need to justify myself—Dr. Gentiana made sure I knew I didn’t indeed to justify my emotions—but I guess I am anyway. Just to show they _are_ justifiable.

But Gladio doesn't seem to realize that he’s doing it, and I think I prefer it that way. I wouldn’t want him to back out of it just because…

I mean, I’m not going to tell him I like it. But I’m not going to move his arm.

And last night…

So he’s not mad at me. He was annoyed, for sure, but I don’t think he’s holding any grudges.

He came back and almost broke down the door in his enthusiasm. I’d been on my computer—at first, I had been editing some photos, then I started working on a blog post, then I ended up scrolling through Twitter for way too long.

“Welcome back,” I said, or something equally as aloof in tone.

“Drautos knows something,” he said.

“What?”

“The night of the murder, the police were supposed to be at the fundraiser. It—”

It took him a minute to actually explain it to me, mostly because he was so worked up. I had to get the big guy to settle down on the edge of the bed instead of pacing. Still, his arms gestured wildly as he spoke.

Apparently, he found info about the fundraiser they’d been holding at the community center on the night that Aera was killed. A key part of the fundraiser was that the local police would be working with the center on some community beautification initiatives.

“...and the chief of police wasn’t there,” said Gladio. “At this big new initiative? It’s fishy.”

“But he was at the scene later…”

“And maybe he set up a clean entry when Aera was out—broke in and left something unlocked…”

“And where does Lucis fit into all of this?”

“Oh, that’s where this gets even more interesting,” said Gladio. “He was _there_.”

“What?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. He handed it over to me, and after unfolding it, I saw that it was a photocopy of a newspaper clipping from 1990. It was hard to tell, at first—Lucis had clearly grown up a lot since his name was still Izunia—but that was him, standing right next to Aera.

“This wasn’t on the front page,” said Gladio. “The murder understandably took over the media’s attention for Aera.”

“Why would he be there?” I was looking at the picture still, because there was something about it that seemed… off.

Gladio moved in closer to me so that he could look at it with me. I don’t know if he was as aware of our actual proximity as I was, but I can’t say that I leaned _away_ from him…

“I mean, he was starting his political career at that point, right?” said Gladio. “It would make sense if he was at an event like this. Good PR and all of that.”

“Hm.”

I wasn’t really listening to him at this point, because there was something—-

“He’s out of focus. Blurred.”

“What?”  
I pointed and Gladio moved in closer to get a better look. His arm was right against mine, and for a second there I forgot that I was supposed to be explaining.

“Like he was moving at the last second. Here—” I pointed to the arms, and by his hips, where there was a slight blur. “This. You can see it in a few places…” I pointed out where another person in a suit in the background was adjusting his sleeve, and where a police officer was moving his hand in the corner of the picture, mid-conversation.

“Yeah—what does it mean?”

I squinted at the picture, trying to get a better read on it. “It’s hard to tell. This is a photocopy of an already shoddy newspaper print…” I took one last glance. “But I think this is a candid, and at the last minute, he tried to get out of the photo. Look at his eyes—surprised even though he’s smiling…”

“Weird.”

“Yeah.”

And then we were just sitting there, close as we were.

So I guess he’s not mad about Lucis’s office. Or maybe he forgot in his excitement. But to be fair, that guy was a huge asshole and we both knew it. Even if we don’t have everything we needed from him, we still have this picture of him and that adds an interesting angle to the night.

I have to wonder if Ardyn knew his brother was with his girlfriend the night she died. Or if the police knew that there were possibly _two_ Izunias in on this. Or that Drautos had a place he conceivably _should_ have been but wasn’t, maybe so that he could be right there on the scene to make sure the crime scene looked the way he wanted…

When I started this job, I can honestly say that I didn’t think I would be solving a 30-year-old mystery with a ripped ex-model.

Of course, I didn’t think I’d be waking up with his arm around me, either, but that’s another thing entirely.

## Clipping from _The Baltimore Examiner_

Congressman Somnus Lucis spoke publicly today at the town hall about the importance of strong communities.

“This is where we find our strength. In the places where we live.” The popular congressmen spoke to a sizable crowd, including both citizens and members of the press. “And we do what we can to build up and fortify our communities against those who would do us and our families harm.”

Lucis’s words connect his appearance solidly with his current work of legislation, an anti-drug bill he has nicknamed the “Community Initiative.”

“So how can we fortify our communities? It isn’t always easy. You see, we have problems already, of gangs and thugs bringing violence and danger into our neighborhoods. This is a battle, and we need the people mobilized to fight for us and our way of life.”

Lucis here refers to the provisions in the Community Initiative bill that expand police presence in communities affected by recent increase in drug-related crime.

“It is places like this that create the opportunity for communities to thrive. But they can only do so with the safety to do so. What is the point of having a town hall, a community gathering place, if the community is afraid to gather there?”

Lucis’s bill does have its critics, who mainly point out the over-emphasis on policing and punitive measures rather than promoting resources to help prevent people from turning to drugs or to assist in helping addicts to get clean.

Lucis addressed these criticisms in his speech, adding that “...there are those who would say that my recent legislation is too ‘heavy handed.’ To them I would remind that there is never too heavy a hand when defending our communities from the menace of drugs and the degenerates who would bring them here.”

The town hall thanked Rep. Lucis for his words and his constant support of their community programming, though the program offerings have been reduced for the coming summer due to budget reallocations.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 5)

I know that my parents weren't good people. I can accept that.

But that doesn’t mean…

They gave me up and I’m glad they did. I know that as rough as the foster system is, living with them would have been worse.

I know that.

But they knew I was out there. And even if they were busy doing… all the shit they were doing, they still…

They wanted their lives the way they lived more than they wanted me.

And their lives _sucked_.

So what does that say about me?

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 23)

We got a call from the main office today, and they weren’t exactly psyched when they got a call from the lawyer of a sitting congressman.

Gladio handed the call, and I didn’t hear most of it, but it seemed like it went over fine.

Like, not good. But not bad, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d had phone conversations like this in the past.

Apparently it was all threats about what we might say about Lucis related to his brother—he had threatened to sue if linked to Ardyn.

“Kind of a shaky claim for court, but if his lawyers were good enough…” said Gladio.

Also he’d banned anyone from _Cutting Edge_ from interviewing or coming into his office.

“Fine by me,” I said. “That guy’s an asshole.”

“Yeah,” said Gladio. His eyes were not looking anywhere in particular, and I could tell that he was thinking about something.

I didn’t press him, though.

“What do we know about the night of the murder, at the fundraiser?” asked Gladio, after a while.

“Aera and Somnus were there. Ardyn was at work, then at home, and apparently didn’t know about it. The fundraiser. Drautos wasn’t there, even though it would have made sense for him to be. And Gilgamesh…?”

“I can’t tell where Gilgamesh was,” said Gladio. “According to his original testimony, he was just at home that night. No real solid alibi.”

“Of course. No one else has a good alibi, either.”

“The case hasn’t been solved in thirty years, so I suppose we can’t just expect it to be easy…”

I raised an eyebrow, because he was saying something neither of us had actually admitted to each other yet, though I think we had both been thinking about it for a while now.

“You think we’ll solve the murder?” I asked.

“I guess that’s where we’re headed,” said Gladio. “I’d feel kind of disappointed if we didn’t, at this point.”

This struck me.

“Have you solved a case before?”

He looked surprised that I’d asked.

“No, I—” He was blushing. Embarrassed? Maybe.

“Yeah?”

“I helped keep some cases open. Pushed them in the right direction. I can’t totally claim to have solved any…”

“I get the feeling you’re underselling yourself,” I said, punching him softly in his arm. He grinned.

“Hey, maybe I am.”

“And we could be working on another impressive addition to your resume now.”

## Clipping from _Cutting Edge_ : “Silenced with a Trick,” Seven Months Ago

The big city can be a scary place, especially when you are there alone at night, just at the cusp of urbanization. You’re at the place where the streetlights begin to thin out and those who prefer the darkness take up residence.

When Gregory Law—who went by “Greg” to his friends—passed through this place on his way to his apartment on the cusp of the city, he did not expect trouble, however. He knew this was just where it was a little bit more affordable to live, because it was not quite as glamorous as the city proper. But there were good people here: the grocery cashier, Janelle, who was always there with some extra coupons he didn’t know applied; the barkeep at the Rusty Stool, James, who was happy to lend an ear even if someone wasn’t sticking around for drinks; the three-man neighborhood cleanup committee that planted flower boxes outside local businesses and arranged community trash cleanups.

So it made sense that Law would not expect to be attacked on his way home from a day in the city proper.

Law was not the first victim of Chuck Grady, but he was the last. Number twenty-seven of boys and young men brutalized by the murderer.

Law’s murder did not begin antagonistically. He had entered a pharmacy for a few things they had run out of back at home—he had sent a text message to his roommates waiting at his apartment that he would be picking up some milk, aspirin, and tortilla chips. One of his roommates, who smokes, had replied asking for him to pick up some disposable lighters, as well.

All of this, plus a bag of Sour Patch Kids, made up Law’s purchase, as confirmed by a credit card receipt retrieved from the store’s computer log.

Law had been approached by a middle-aged man at this point, whose polo shirt bore the same logo as that on the side of his pickup truck: LHL Contractors. The “LHL,” the man explained to Law, stood for “Lawn, House, and Landscape.” He introduced himself as Chuck Grady, the owner of the company. He said it was a strange proposition, but one of his laborers had fallen ill the day before and they needed an extra set of hands for a construction project the next day.

He told Law he would fill him in on the details, if he’d like, while he gave him a ride home.

The pharmacy’s CCTV cameras show Law entering Grady’s truck, apparently willingly, at 7:14 PM that evening. This is the last known footage of Law while he was alive.

The rest of the story comes together mainly from a mixture of court testimony, police investigation, and further independent investigation on the parts of amateur sleuths.

Law went with Grady back to his home, where Grady laid out the terms of his employment—what sorts of jobs he could expect, what was coming up tomorrow, what responsibilities he would have, and the like. The conversation turned when Law noticed the top hat perched atop Grady’s microwave. He did not know it, of course, but Grady kept it there purposefully in the view of the kitchen table so that it would be a subject of conversation, one that would be a key part of what court documents later confirmed to be his modus operandi.

“Oh, that?” said Grady, picking up the top hat and placing it on his head with a flourish.

He went on to explain that he liked to practice sleight-of hand magic in his free time. Law asked for a demonstration, just as Grady had planned.

He showed off, as he had to many young men like Law before, his “handcuff trick.” This involved him placing a pair of handcuffs on Law and asking him if he knew the trick to getting out of them. Law tugged at his wrists for a moment before admitting he didn’t just as other young men had before.

At that point, Grady told him that the trick was to have the keys. What followed this was a horrific sexual assault, and Law was strangled with a ligature in the ensuing hours.

His body was found after a search party turned up nothing, but several witnesses and CCTV footage placed Grady as the last person to see him alive. Police interviewed Grady the next day, but found nothing suspicious in his statement. His connection to the crime and Law’s failure to show up at his own home despite Grady saying he had “dropped him off at the curb of his house” led to Grady staying within the realm of scrutiny, however. When a neighbor reported to the fire department a day after Law’s disappearance that Grady seemed to be burning garbage in his backyard fire pit, investigators found the charred remains of Law’s clothing, shoes, and wallet. Further searching of Grady’s home found a fresh grave dug in the dirt-floor basement, sprinkled with quicklime. It was not the only grave in the cellar, however, and Gregory Law was the first of 27 victims whose remains were uncovered in Grady’s basement.

It was only through scrutiny that this case was solved, and only through the concerns of a neighbor were authorities and other investigators able to find evidence of the horrors Grady had committed.

The city can be a scary place to be alone at night, and Law found that out in a way more tragic than any person should have to face. However, with Grady facing a pending fourteen life sentences to the death penalty, one can rest slightly easier knowing there is one fewer predator in the shadows. Only through the strength of the community—of trusting those who uplift and care for those around them—can the city be safe. And clear communication and attention can lead to, if not saving people from horrors like this, stopping more from occurring by stopping those who would prey on other human beings.


	7. Chapter 7

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 24)

A lot can happen in a day. I want to talk about everything at once but I also know I can’t without getting there first, if that makes any sense? I mean, I need to parse it out for myself, and that’s what the journal’s for.

Starting at the beginning seems like the best bet.

I woke up to the soft breath of the big guy nestling his face into the back of my neck.

After that, I had to suppress a flustered panic, despite which I did my best to play it cool and wiggle out of his grasp without waking him. Then I pretended to be asleep lying stock-still until he woke up so it wouldn’t be weird.

Yeah.

And then we grabbed some coffee after Gladio had tamed his mane of a bedhead and got moving toward our first stop of the day.

I hadn’t given much thought to Drautos beyond what we’d done in our first interview, and what Gladio had said last night about him not showing up to the fundraise but being right on the scene of the murder.

## Interview Transcript #5 (with Titus Drautos)

**Gladiolus** : Thank you for meeting with us again, Officer Drautos.

**Titus** : I’m happy to make sure I can clarify anything you have come across in your research. Like I told you before, I want to be sure what you publish isn’t tainted by misinformation or rumor.

**Gladiolus** : Of course.

**Titus** : And I know you have a stand-up publication. I wouldn’t want you publishing anything that would affect the way people perceived it.

**Gladiolus** : What are you insinuating?

**Titus** : Nothing at all.  
Ahem.  
What can I help you with?

**Gladiolus** : Yes. We’ve been looking into the night of the murder to make sure that we do justice to the truth and to what happened to Aera. Especially since we still do not know who the killer was.

**Titus** : …

**Gladiolus** : The night of her murder, you were, of course, one of the first officers on the scene. I won’t make you relive those details, do not worry. But Aera’s murder happened later in the night, and we’re actually looking earlier in the evening. Can you tell us a little bit about what you had been doing earlier in the night, before you got the call to respond to Aera’s killing?

**Titus** : I was on duty that night. I start at about… eleven PM, I think. Excuse me if I have my times slightly off—it’s been 30 years and the start of my shift isn’t really what stands out to me from that night.

**Gladiolus** : Had you done anything else in the night, before you started your shift?

**Titus** : Well, I probably took a nap that afternoon. You know, with the night shift and all.

**Gladiolus** : Of course.

**Titus** : So I can’t say for sure, but I probably napped from late afternoon to nine thirty or so. Nothing particularly exciting for your article.

**Gladiolus** : Hm.  
And this might seem like a strange question, but were you scheduled to work that night?

**Titus** : I was at work, wasn’t I?

**Gladiolus** : Yes, of course you were. I just wonder if you were scheduled to work, or if you had been brought on as a switch in the schedule.

**Titus** : I don’t know. It was 30 years ago, what does it matter?

**Gladiolus** : Again, we’re just trying to get a full picture of the night.

**Titus** : I don’t know, maybe I was working for someone else, but either way, I had enough notice to take a nap before my shift. And I was there the night of Fleuret’s death. Isn’t that what really matters?

**Gladiolus** : Of course, I—

**Titus** : This case has been a stain on my reputation for years. And every time, I have to dig up how horrible it was, and you don’t understand…  
You weren’t there. You never _could_ understand. But don’t try to pin this on me the way people have tried before. It was horrible, awful—and I didn’t kill that girl.

**Gladiolus** : We never insinuated that you did.

**Titus** : If you didn’t think it, you wouldn’t be back here, bringing up these ghosts again.

**Gladiolus** : We’ll be going, then.  
…  
Though, I have to ask—how familiar are you with Somnus Izunia? Or Somnus Lucis?

**Titus** : S-Somnus? I…  
…  
The representative? I don’t know. Think I voted for him.  
Why?

**Gladiolus** : Of course. Just saw his ad on the side of a bus on our way in. Might do a political piece, wanted a perspective. Figured while I was already bothering a local…

**Titus** : He tells it like it is. And he seems to have a good head on his shoulders.  
…  
You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not much into politics…

**Gladiolus** : That’s fine. Just trying to get a bead on him. Thank you, Officer.

**Titus** : Of course.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 24)

Drautos was really weird in a couple of places. Like, how he didn’t want to talk about the night Aera was murdered. He was like that before, and I get it if it was super traumatizing and stuff.

But the scheduling question? Gladio asked him about if he was scheduled that night or not. Like, if he had switched shifts. Because what if he _was_ supposed to be at the fundraiser?

But he was super weird about it.

And having been a suspect in this case for so long, you’d think he’d have a solid grasp on everything that happened that night.

Then there was the way he responded to Gladio when he brought up Lucis. Gladio mentioned both of his names, so Drautos would know him regardless. And he clammed up.

“He definitely knows Lucis,” I said to Gladio in the Uber to our next stop.

“Of course he did,” said Gladio. “He wasn’t able to complete the name change legally for at least a few months after the murder. The papers date Somnus Lucis’s political debut a year after the murders.”

“So he would have been interviewed as Ardyn’s brother.”

“And the chief investigator just claimed he didn’t know him.”

Gladio let that sink in, but I knew exactly what that must mean: he was hiding something with Somnus’s connection to the crime. What his motivations could be for that, however, I had no clue.

From there, we headed to town hall, where all of the records pre-2000 for all departments were held. It took us a little bit to be granted access after showing the clerk our press credentials, but we were able to access the basement level of the building, which was filled with approximately a million file cabinets and lit entirely by flickering fluorescents.

## Case File: Interview with Somnus Izunia, October 8, 1990, Conducted by Officer Titus Drautos

**Titus** : Please state your name for the recording.

**Somnus** : Somnus Izunia.

**Titus** : Thank you. Now, you understand why you have been brought here today?

**Somnus** : Yes, I do.

**Titus** : …  
Four days ago, on the night of October 4, your brother's girlfriend, Aera Fleuret, was murdered in her home.

**Somnus** : Yes.

**Titus** : And you are aware of your brother’s role in this, yes?

**Somnus** : He has been arrested in suspicion for killing her.

**Titus** : He has been brought in for questioning, just as you have. Just so we can determine more accurately what happened the night of Fleuret’s death.

**Somnus** : My brother is a person of interest in this case, is that correct?

**Titus** : That is correct.

**Somnus** : You said I was being questioned just as he was. Do you mean to say that I also am a person of interest in this case?

**Titus** : Of course not,—  
We need to be thorough if we want to catch the culprit.

**Somnus** : Of course.

**Titus** : What can you tell me about your brother’s relationship with Aera?

**Somnus** : He was—possessive of her.

**Titus** : Oh?

**Somnus** : Protective of her. Didn’t want other people around her. I am sure he thought of it as love, but if I am being honest, it was more like possession. He didn’t want her around other men.

**Titus** : Was he violent about this? Or violent toward her?

**Somnus** : Never in any way that left a mark. But she… she would cringe sometimes, and she was never about to do anything that he would not want her to. There was a strange dynamic in their relationship, because she was so outgoing and kind when she wasn’t around him…

**Titus** : [REDACTED]

**Somnus** : [REDACTED]

**Titus** : [REDACTED]

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 24)

What we found was weird. The start of the file was totally normal, with some crime scene photos marked for release—the ones taken after the place had been cleaned up and the body had been removed—but then when it got to the part with the interviews, we started finding whole chunks blacked out and redacted.

Which is weird, right?

Gladio said it was.

And most of what was redacted was to do with Lucis.

What was strange, though, was that some of what he had said was solidly on the record. Mainly it seemed, the stuff where he made sure he was innocent where he had talked bad about his brother.

But what he’d said about Ardyn didn’t—it didn't quite match up with what Ardyn seemed like.

Like don’t get me wrong, he was creepy. But when he talked about Aera, he sounded genuine.

Meanwhile, Lucis seems like an all-around D-bag. But I know vibes aren’t going to solve this case or write this article.

And that wasn’t our last step.

If they were going out of their way to not only cover up Somnus’s involvement with this case as someone tangentially involved, it would make sense. I guess. But then redacting his statements from files?

But then there was the matter of Gilgamesh, and we go to that in the files, too. He wasn’t around to interview for us, obviously, because he’s dead, but he seemed just… separate from everything else. Like Ardyn and Titus were both connected through Aera and through the investigation. But Gilgamesh has been held as a legitimate suspect just as long as the two of them have.

So we went back to the start. How did he get brought in as a suspect, besides happening to work in the same place as Aera?

We found that answer not far from Somnus’s redacted interview transcript.

Gilgamesh had been submitted to the file as an official suspect October 27th—a few weeks after Aera’s murder, and well after Ardyn had been established as a suspect.

Gladio had noted that Titus wouldn't be named as a suspect for another few months, as it was his involvement (or over-involvement) with the media coverage of the case that brought attention to him as a suspect.

But Gilgamesh was not a part of the initial investigation—even the first interview with him didn’t seem to have much detail at all beyond a few short questions about Aera at work. It was only after Drautos filed a report of suspicious activity that he became a serious consideration in the case.

The “suspicious activity” wasn’t even defined, but Gladio said that was just shorthand in a lot of police reports. They didn’t want to spend all night writing out every little thing that happened, so they just wrote “suspicious activity” and moved on from there.

He was brought back in for further questioning and was mainly held because he:

  * Had no alibi
  * Had the strength and martial arts know-how to effectively subdue Aera.



“I don’t think it was him,” said Gladio.

“Why?” I asked. He shuffled the case file toward me.

“The wounds.”

Gladio leaned over and pointed to the description of the wounds in Aera’s autopsy.

## Autopsy Report: Aera Fleuret (Oct. 6, 1990)

**SUMMARY OF CLINICAL HISTORY:** The patient was a 26-year-old Asian American female with no significant past medical history. Upon EMS arrival, she had been dead for at least 30 minutes, as established by body temperature, blood loss, and the onset of pallor mortis. The patient was pronounced dead at 0215 by medics on the scene.

**DESCRIPTION OF GROSS LESIONS:**

EXTERNAL EXAMINATION: The body is that of a 26-year-old well developed, well-nourished female. There are bruises and ruptured skin that indicate blunt force trauma to the rear of the head. Bruising and swelling around the neck and discoloration of the throat, lips, and face. Compound fracture of left femur. Bruising on arms and torso indicating multiple blows.

INTERNAL EXAMINATION: Cavities do not exhibit any damage beyond…

…

**CLINICOPATHOLOGIC CORRELATION:** The patient died from asphyxiation after manual strangulation for a prolonged time.

The most significant finding on autopsy was the presence of subdermal bruising in the rear of the patient’s head, unrelated to the bruising patterns of the blunt force trauma inflicted there. This suggests that the killer not only asphyxiated the patient via manual strangulation, but did so with a violence which led to the additional bruising on impact with some hard surface. The pooling of blood in these contusions would be difficult to perceive due to the nature of the post-mortem battery and trauma. Internal bleeding patterns suggest that cracked ribs were injured while the patient was alive, though additional two broken ribs including the 3rd rib that punctured the patient’s left lung were injured after death. The compound fracture in the left femur was also inflicted post-mortem, most likely because of the force with which the patient was thrown down the stairs, based on the original placement of the patient’s body.

In summary, this patient died of asphyxiation due to prolonged, violent manual strangulation. The violence of the patient’s death is evident in the multitude of post-mortem injuries.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 24)

“There’s no way Gilgamesh could have totally strangled her in the way the autopsy describes Aera’s wounds,” said Gilgamesh.

“He was strong enough…”

“But he would not have been able to strangle her to death with just one arm. _Especially_ ,” added Gladio, “if she was throttled in the way the autopsy and Drautos described. He’d need two hands to keep ahold of her as he…” He trailed off, and I wondered what he was thinking.

Gladio had seen more pictures that I had in his research, I’m sure. And something in his eyes told me that he’d seen her.

Drautos may have been a shady and untrustworthy-seeming suspect, but I think the way he described the murder as something haunting, he had a point.

And Ardyn had asked…

He'd asked for a focus on _her_ as a person, not as a body.

I wondered how hard that was going to be for Gladio in his writing, seeing what he had seen.

I moved a hand to his thigh in reassurance, but almost immediately regretted it. He might have stiffened a bit, but he didn't change his expression, so I might have imagined it.

Maybe I overstepped, but I left my hand there—I didn’t want to call more attention to it.

“So Gilgamesh is out?”

“I mean,” said Gladio, his voice gruff as he shifted in the chair. Not quite enough to move my hand, though. As if he wanted it to stay there? Maybe? “If he _really_ wanted to do it, I’m sure he could have found a way. But…”

“He was probably innocent.”

“And no one knew that, up until he died.”

We both fell into silence for a moment, and I finally pulled my hand back from Gladio as I realized something.

“Why would Drautos implicate him, then?”

“To draw attention away from the real murderer.”

Gladio turned to me, and I turned to him. It was all speculation, yeah, but it made sense. Why would Gilgamesh be suddenly brought into all of this? And why would he remain a focus when it didn’t really make sense for him to be?

“Which means…”

“Drautos either did it,” said Gladio, “or he knows who did.”

We both went quiet after that. We’d been sitting with him just earlier, and this all was unravelling fast. But I was comforted, at least a little, that Gladio was there with me.

And I know I sound all sensitive or whatever, but it’s creepy to realize that you've been talking with someone who’s involved in a murder. Before this, it felt like theory, but after putting things together…

But my leg was against Gladio’s, so it didn’t shake. And even though I had a chill, the warmth of Gladio so close to me balanced it out. And if I just…

But Gladio was standing, so suddenly that I had almost dropped the case file we were investigating in the dim light of the basement, surrounded by records.

“Drautos was weird in the interview,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, getting to my feet as well.

“Especially when we asked him about his shift.” Gladio looked down the rows of filing cabinets for a moment in thought before looking back to me. “Which would mean he probably _did_ have something funky going on there.”

“And if he didn’t go to the fundraiser, when we expected him to, there’s one person who _did_ go that we didn’t.” I ran my fingers over the edge of the case file in my hands. It had left things out, sure, but the specific things it left out told a story. “But the person who was there he was weird about…”

“And that same person directly tried to implicate his own brother in a murder.”

“You think he was pushing in that interview?”

“Of course he was.”

“And he was with Aera earlier on the night of her death.”

“And Drautos implicates Gilgamesh…”

“But that wasn’t to distract from himself, because he wasn’t even a suspect until later on.”

Gladio grinned, and grabbed my arms just above the elbow to face me. “So he was trying to distract from the real killer, who maybe would have been found too easily if the case focused on Ardyn. So that real killer was either Drautos—”

“Which is doubtful, because he was on patrol with another office since 11, and wouldn’t have had the time to kill her—or, well, it’d be hard…” I was aware of Gladio’s excitement in the way his hands closed around my biceps, and also was aware of how small my biceps were compared to his. But that wasn’t where my focus could stay, not right now.

“—so it means that leaves us with one probable killer.”

“One who worked with Drautos, but wasn’t even a suspect.”

Gladio shook his head. “How could he be? He hasn’t existed for 30 years.”

Our eyes met at that moment, and I knew that we both knew who it was. And the chills came back, but as his eyes pierced mine, I didn't think they had to do with the murder. He moved a bit closer, and as he did, I found myself closing my eyes just slightly, ready for him to lean in and…

Well.

We didn’t. Kiss, I mean. We had enough going on. He let go of me a moment later and acted like nothing had happened, but I could _feel_ some energy between us. Excitement because of what we’d figured out, yeah but also…

If he’d tried to kiss me, I would have let him. I would have wanted him to.

But finding a murderer is a lot of excitement for one day. And maybe it’s enough.

Gladio’s in the bathroom right now, and I’m sure he’ll be out soon. It’s late. And we’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.

We’ll see what happens then.


	8. Chapter 8

## Text Conversation

Prompto: noct we did it

Noct: wow ok

Noct: u sure moved fast

Prompto: ???

Prompto: no

Prompto: NO WAIT

Noct: >:3c

Prompto: no we solved the murder!!

Prompto: thats all!!

Noct: :/

Prompto: still kinda a big deal

Noct: no thats cool 2

Prompto: it was a 30 yr cold case

Noct: thats gr8

Noct: proud of u

Prompto: ty

Prompto: also he almost kissed me

Noct: !

Noct: ?

Prompto: just the murder thing tho

Noct: murder whatever

Prompto: well

Noct: u like him?

Prompto: yeah

Prompto: i guess so

Noct: so

Prompto: idk weve been busy

Noct: now its time 2 get busy

Prompto: pls

Noct: 4 real congrats on murder

Prompto: yeah ty

Noct: who did it?

Prompto: u can read the article

Noct: :0

Noct: >:0

Prompto: :3c

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 2)

It's weird to be abandoned by people you never knew. And it’s weirder to feel like you failed them.

And I guess I feel disappointed?

It’s all just weird.

Noct cooked dinner last night. By which I mean, he burned something in the microwave, called Ignis, and then he had him give the phone to Luna, and Luna cooked the dinner.

But even when she took over, he was right there for her, getting her ingredients from the fridge and cleaning dishes (which was clearly not his favorite) and stuff. Noct cleaned the dishes for Luna. Which I guess shows how much he loves her.

(And I mean, it’s Luna. Who can blame him?)

It’s cool to see them working together so well. Being a team.

And the food didn’t end up tasting half bad, either (thanks, Luna).

But I don't know. They support me. I know I’m not abandoned. But I still… I don’t know.

It feels weird. It’s a weird situation.

I hope this is the sort of thing Dr. Gentiana is looking for.

I guess I feel nervous about actually writing “the right stuff” here. But that’s probably not right. I don’t know.

## Interview Transcript #6 (with Ardyn Izunia)

**Gladiolus** : Thank you for meeting with us again, and at such short notice.

**Ardyn** : You sounded earnest on the phone, and said you had new information. So—have you figured anything out?

**Gladiolus** : We’ll get there. But I want to make sure of something before we finalize anything, or put anything into print.

**Ardyn** : I—okay. What can I do for you?

**Gladiolus** : Thank you. We just have some questions about your brother.

**Ardyn** : My brother?

**Gladiolus** : What was his relationship with Aera?

**Ardyn** : Somnus? Oh, he was guarded toward her. He—he didn’t seem to care for her very much.

**Gladiolus** : Was he rude to her, or—?

**Ardyn** : No, not really _rude_ , just… dismissive. He didn’t seem to want to be around her. She tried, of course, but...

**Gladiolus** : Hm.  
And can you think of any reason why he might have acted this way toward her?

**Ardyn** : I do not know—we met on the same night, too. We were at a small bar downtown, the Star, and she was singing karaoke with some of her friends. I went up to compliment her voice.

**Prompto** : What was she singing?

**Ardyn** : It was… some Madonna song. “Into the Groove.” A couple of years out of date, but it was fun. And when I saw her…

**Gladiolus** : And you hit it off right away?

**Ardyn** : Well, yes. She was beautiful, and once we started talking, I could tell she was intelligent, witty, and kind. She was… she was one of a kind.

**Gladiolus** : Did Somnus act cold right away, or did he get to know her first?

**Ardyn** : I don’t know. He…  
Well....

**Gladiolus** : Yeah?

**Ardyn** : He moved out not long after we started dating more seriously. He said it was because he was trying to grow up more, be his own man, but…

**Prompto** : You think he wanted to distance himself from Aera? Or from the two of you together?

**Ardyn** : …  
I have to ask: what do you think Somnus had to do with this? He hasn’t even talked to me for over 25 years. Do you think he’s involved?

**Gladiolus** : Um… Well, maybe.  
Have you seen this picture before?

**Ardyn** : I—no. When is this…?

**Gladiolus** : October 4, 1990. The night of Aera’s death.

**Ardyn** : Why would he—?

**Gladiolus** : That’s what we’re trying to determine.

**Ardyn** : Was this the fundraiser?

**Gladiolus** : It was.

**Ardyn** : He was… He was trying to bolster his public image, so I can understand… I can see why he would be there. But…

**Gladiolus** : Yes?

**Ardyn** : He never mentioned this. And… It looked like he’s talking _with her_. I don’t know if he spoke more than a few words to her at a time the whole time we were dating.

**Prompto** : If I can break in here—sorry—but when you dated Aera, did you spend a lot of time with her all the time, or did she spend time with other people, too?

**Ardyn** : I do not know if I understand exactly what you’re asking.

**Prompto** : You seem surprised that she’s with Somnus here, but you also were not aware of the fundraiser at all at the time, or you said you weren’t when we talked to you before.

**Ardyn** : Look at you, asking the tough questions. You’ve come a long way in a short time, little bird.  
No, she spent many nights with friends or without me. Of course I didn’t know everything she did. I often worked the night shift at the hospital, so it would not have been feasible for me to be overprotective, even if I wanted to.  
But Aera was an independent woman, and trustworthy. I had no reason to be jealous.

**Prompto** : Thank you.

**Ardyn** : I’m much obliged, Mr. Argentum.

**Gladiolus** : You said you had no reason to be jealous of Aera. But is there any chance that Somnus was jealous of _you_?

**Ardyn** : What do you mean?

**Gladiolus** : In 1990, you had a stable job, a beautiful and caring girlfriend, and a clear future laid out in front of you. Everything was falling into place. Your brother, on the other hand, was still just moving out to feel more “grown up” and was still just getting started in his political pursuits.

**Ardyn** : Are you trying to construct a motive, Mr. Amicitia?

**Gladiolus** : I’m trying to uncover one.

**Ardyn** : Are you saying my brother killed my girlfriend because he was jealous of me?

**Gladiolus** : Is there anything else you can give me that would support or deny that line of thinking?

**Ardyn** : …  
He is my brother.

**Prompto** : Listen—you don’t know me well, but believe me. Family can disappoint you. And… Well, it sucks. But it’s…  
It’s the people you choose to have in your life who really matter.

**Ardyn** : I chose Aera. And he took her away from me.  
…  
He wanted what I had—but what I _had_ , it only ever mattered because of _her_ …

**Gladiolus** : And he knew that, then.

**Ardyn** : He is my brother. I loved him, too.

**Gladiolus** : Mr. Izunia, we will be publishing an article with all of the proof we’ve gathered. We—  
We won’t be able to bring her back. But… hopefully, we’ll clear your name.

**Prompto** : And get justice for Aera.

**Ardyn** : What—what can I do?

**Gladiolus** : Nothing, for now. You’ve waited 30 years. And we’ll sort this out, if you can just wait a bit longer.

**Ardyn** : I—  
I suppose I must wait.  
Thank you.

**Gladiolus** : It’s all almost over.

**Ardyn** : I’m putting my trust in you.

**Prompto** : Thank you.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 25)

I’m supposed to use this journal to write about my feelings, right?

Well.

Judging by my heartbeat right now, I’m pretty stoked.

Oh man.

So.

After we met with Ardyn, Gladio and I went back to the hotel room so we could get some work done. We couldn't quite spread everything out at Starbucks.

We had the clippings and photos and everything spread out across the bed, and Gladio was typing away at his laptop as I brought him the scraps he needed or rearranged the piles of evidence.

And he asked to see the pictures I’d taken, so he could fit the tone of the article with them, and started to plan out his different scene beats with the visuals we had.

And I gave him my laptop open to the folder of pictures I’d taken and already started to sort through for edits.

And he started from the beginning, scrolling through from the first pictures I’d taken when we’d gotten here. After a moment or so, he turned to me.

“You know,” he said, “I don’t usually include myself in the narrative of my articles.”

“What?”

He turned the screen toward me so that I could see what he was looking at.

It was a photo from our first day here, when we had visited Aera’s grave. The photo had Gladio standing stolidly next to it, resolute. It was a good picture, and a particularly good picture _of him_ , showing off his strong profile and broad shoulders.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “We don’t have to use that one.”

“What about this one?” asked Gladio, hitting the arrow keys a few times to get to our first interview with Izunia. He paused on one that framed him in focus, with Ardyn’s shoulder and back of his head out-of-focus in the foreground. Gladio was leaning slightly forward in his chair, a small lock of hair falling forward over his forehead, his eyes set and his face framed perfectly by the spacing of the photo and Ardyn’s position.

“Oh yeah, well…” I began, but he thumbed forward a bit to the interview with Drautos. And the time we’d spent at the house. The picture we’d looked at, of the back door, was bookended on each side by photos of Gladio, investigating the scene. Then, one at the hotel, with Gladio grinning back at the camera.

“Oh, I guess I…” I managed to get out. I hadn’t realized I’d taken so many pictures of Gladio. And now he was seeing them _all_ , and I looked like some kind of creep…

“I like this one,” he said, pointing to the photo of him grinning back at the camera. For such an intimidating-looking guy, he wore a smile well. It was so _genuine_ on him, endearing.

“Oh!” I said, feeling a blush coming to my face. “Really?”

“Yeah,” said Gladio. “I think this was when I realized you were taking pictures of me as well as the stuff for the article…”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t even realize…” I said, fumbling over my words. I suddenly didn’t know what to do with my hands, and fiddled with them in my lap. “But thanks for smiling for the camera, I guess. I can, uh, send you the pictures if you’d like…”

“I wasn’t smiling at the camera. I was smiling at _you_.”

I looked up at him at this point, and that same smile crept across his rugged face. “What?” I asked.

“I was smiling at you,” he repeated. He moved his hand over to place it atop mine. His hand completely covered mine, but I was glad he put his hand on the back of my hand, because my palms were suddenly really sweaty.

“I guess I just—I like taking pictures of pretty things,” I said, hardly believing what I was saying even as I said it. “It’s a nice distraction from all the murder.”

“And I guess that’s why you let me spoon you,” said Gladio.

“You know?” I felt my heartbeat quicken.

“I don’t know when it started,” he said, and I swear I saw some color in his cheeks as he spoke. “But I guess I grab onto stuff—or people—when I sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night a night or two ago, and you were there and asleep, and…” He shook his head, but I didn’t know what to say. I could hardly believe what I was hearing. “You looked so peaceful sleeping in my arms, so I just sort of went with it. And I liked… having you close.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I mean, what _do_ you say to that, when some freaking Adonis basically admits he likes sleeping with you?

Wait, not like that…

But he looked at me expectantly, and I felt his hand on mine, and his eyes, his face, his _everything_ —

I took my other hand and cupped his cheek. He began to lean into my touch, his beard coarse against my hand, but I angled his face back toward mine and kissed him.

I kissed him.

And he kissed me back.

Everything else melted away for a moment. There were no murder pictures and clippings around us, and we weren’t in our hotel room—we weren’t anywhere. We were just the two of us, and it was perfect.

So I’m happy?

Very happy.

It—it is amazing.

And so is _he_.

The big guy’s working on the article now, and as far as he knows, I’m working on edits. But I just had to write this down.

I kissed him, and he kissed me back.

It worked out, and I wasn’t just pining for nothing.

Ah, oh man.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 4)

Dr. Gentiana said I needed to address my feelings more specifically, so I guess I’ll lay it all out there. That is what this is all about, after all.

I never knew my parents. As long as I can remember, I’ve been in foster homes or in custody of CPS or—

And I aged out and worked through school thanks to some scholarship and a lot of luck and now I’m in a good place. I have a job I love that’s creative and I have good friends who care about me.

But I don’t know.

I guess I figured my parents were dead already, as bad as that sounds. Or maybe that they were separated, or in jail, or something. That they were teen parents who couldn’t deal with a baby.

But they were normal. Ish.

I mean, apparently they both had some alcoholism and drug problems near the end. But…

That was near the end.

They were normal (normal _enough_ ) when they had me.

They were a couple who had a baby and gave it up.

Gave me up.

They died in a car accident. I found out when they searched for next-of-kin and found me through government records or something.

They were speeding and were found to have high levels of alcohol in their systems.

They had some sort of an excuse for their deaths. Or, not an excuse, but a _reason_.

They didn’t have a reason for abandoning me.

They had no recorded problems with drinking or drugs, no arrests or citations or anything, nothing on their records until just a few years ago.

They just didn’t want me.

I can’t say I wanted _them_.

But shouldn’t they have cared?

You should want to have the people who are important to you in your life.

I just wasn’t important.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 26)

Okay, so:

I’ve never had a pending lawsuit against me, so that’s cool.

Well, the lawsuit is against _Cutting Edge_ , but I get named more than a few times in the court documents, and the higher-ups do expect Gladio and I to show up on the court date.

Apparently, Lucis is spinning it like Gladio and I are trying to defame him while his bill is being passed through to a vote next week. And to be fair, he did tell us that he would be suing if we talked about him in the article.

I’m not too worried about the stink he’s causing, though, since he’s a Representative at the federal level, the FBI is stepping in to take over the investigation into Aera’s murder.

And Drautos has already been arrested for tampering with evidence—apparently after going back through the documents where we had found holes and the other evidence—including DNA that had not been yet tested, because the technology wasn’t there in the early 90s—some clear link to Drautos’s meddling had been uncovered. It makes sense—he was first on the scene and was able to make sure everything looked the way it should.

He had not, however, remembered that the backyard was muddy, or that randomly naming someone as a suspect didn’t exactly make you look less guilty. I can’t imagine what it felt like when he found out _he_ was in the hot seat as a suspect and Somnus wasn't going to help him, but he couldn't implicate the real murderer without admitting his own involvement. He’s sort of an asshole so I don’t really _care_ , but it must’ve sucked.

Izunia was glad to read the article, though. He emailed Gladio and I both about it. Apparently, the guy’s finally getting to move on with his life. He hasn’t been officially cleared on suspicion, but the story is circulating well, especially since his brother and the recent top suspect is a sitting congressman. It sort of eclipses any suspicion of his role in it all.

Ardyn is a weird guy, but he didn’t deserve all that happened to him. I’m glad everything is sort of mellowing out for him.

And I didn’t get picked up for “People on the Street” again. But that’s okay, because I like my new assignment. After the wild success of my last collaboration with Gladio, _Cutting Edge_ is pairing us up for at least the next couple of articles.

And that works just fine for me.

What’s better than working with a huge hot guy who cares about you and holds you and will make out with you if you want?

Not much.

And life is good, you know?

We figured it all out. Aera is finally going to get her justice. And we wrote a successful article. And Somnus is going to pay for his crime. And I have Gladio, who makes me feel wanted. Makes me feel needed. We did all of this _together_ , and we’re together still.

I don’t know if this is what Dr. Gentiana was looking for when she had me start this journal. I don’t know if there’s any reason for most of what I’ve scribbled in here. But I feel better, now. More at peace. I have Noct and Luna, and I have Gladio. I have _Cutting Edge_. I have people around me I want to have around me, and who want me.

And I’m excited for whatever’s going to happen tomorrow.


	9. Chapter 9

## Clipping from _Cutting Edge_ : “30 Years Later: The Aera Fleuret Cold Case and Answers to Questions Yet Unanswered,” Most Recent Issue

Aera Fleuret lived a fulfilling life, one that was cut short—far too short—thirty years ago, on October 4, 1990.

This murder shocked those who loved her and the greater community at large—she was an active part of the local community center’s childcare program. Her tireless work there was in fact what kept her there many hours, including at a benefit for that program the very night that she was killed.

She arrived at the benefit early. During the afternoon, she had worked with her students at the children’s center to paint a new mural—one that would barely be dry in time to show off that evening. She wanted everything to be just right. There would be donors, yes, but also the center would be partnering with the local police department in order to share resources and better integrate the community center’s resources with the needs of the larger community. This meant there would be promotional photos and important eyes on the center that might not otherwise have been.

She had changed out of her paint-stained overalls, and on her way to do so, had stopped by to wish her then boyfriend, Ardyn Izunia, well before his shift at the hospital as a night nurse. When she returned to the community, the caterers were bringing in some equipment to set up, but she was already gussied up, wearing a smart and conservative blouse-and-skirt combination that looked nice but also allowed her the movement to get things done, something she would have had her mind keenly on. Aera Fleuret was not one to stop and let others do things for her.

The guests began to arrive not long after, and Aera greeted each of them personally, careful to make eye contact and remember names, keep each person happy and feeling they—and their money—were welcome. People mingled and the night was off to a rousing start.

Aera worked the room well, speaking with potential donors and discussing recent initiatives—including the fresh mural just outside the building—with community advocates.

Among those she greeted and talked with was a relative unknown in the political world at the time but someone Aera already knew and made sure to include in her rounds while networking: her boyfriend’s brother, Somnus Izunia.

Somnus was then an aspiring city councilman, and was aware that his participation in community events such as this would do much for his burgeoning political career. He knew Aera, and was able to get his foot in the door with many of the attendees through her.

Meanwhile, despite this fundraiser being a joint effort with the police department, officer Titus Drautos—who had helped make the connections between the community center and the police department and who was on the invite list—was not in attendance. Instead, earlier that day he had taken a shift from another officer. This shift change put him on patrol that night, and as the fundraiser was in full swing around eight PM, he was still an hour away from the end of his afternoon nap to prepare for his night shift.

At eight-thirty, the fundraiser quieted down so that Aera could address the assembled crowd. She took the time to discuss prior projects as well as new initiatives—both as a part of the community center’s efforts and in conjunction with the police department’s community outreach program. She thanked those assembled for their contributions, reminded them that they could offer donations with volunteers throughout the center that night, and closed her speech, saying:

“Please remember to take a look at the mural on your way out. The kids who put it together come from many different families, situations, and backgrounds, but each of them is a part of this community. When you contribute to the community here, you contribute to these kids, and to them coming together, finding strength and support in one another, and growing as a community. And they’re able to learn new things about the world and about themselves because they have one another. Thank you for giving them the space to do that.”

Her speech was met with applause and a few more checks made out to the center. By the end of the next hour, the fundraiser was over, most of the donors on their way home. Aera stayed behind to help rearrange the center to the way it usually was for the daytime activities. Once that was done, she headed home—this was sometime just before eleven.

It was eleven when Ardyn, her boyfriend, was sent home early from his shift at the hospital. He had been experiencing flu-like symptoms, and the administrator sent him home with instructions to get plenty of fluids and bedrest.

Titus Drautos was on patrol with another officer—Tredd Furia—but the night was largely quiet. Drautos was driving the patrol car, and his partner did not comment if he had noticed that their patrol seemed to be a much smaller route that night.

Aera sat at home with a glass of wine as she unwound from her long day. She recorked the bottle after she poured the glass—she had been working all day, and only wanted the one drink-and enjoyed it while watching the evening news.

Sometime soon after she shut off the TV and rinsed out her glass to set in the dishrack to dry, an intruder entered through the back door, which opened to the kitchen. Aera did not hear this, as she was upstairs preparing for bed at the time.

The intruder was careful to remove his shoes as he entered, knowing the muddy spot out back of Aera’s house would lead to tracks as he entered. The intruder knew this because he had been to Aera’s home before and knew exactly what to expect.

He came upon her in her upstairs hallway, where she was crossing from her bedroom to the bathroom. She recognized her intruder, questioned him for a moment, and after a moment, he attacked her.

He wrapped his hands around her neck, gripping hard. She struggled against him, knocking over the table in the upstairs hallway and sending a vase of flowers tumbling to the ground.

She soon was on the floor, as well, her attacker atop her. He tightened his hands around her throat and—perhaps in an attempt to quell her efforts to resist him or perhaps a pure result of his rage—began to shake her head back against the hardwood floor beneath her. The back of her head struck the hard floor multiple times, all while she took her last glimpse of her murderer—someone she had known.

Once Aera’s body had gone limp, the attacker moved quickly. He looked around, saw the vase that had been knocked to the ground, and hefted it upward before battering Aera’s body with it. He flipped her body over and brough the vase down on her skull hard enough repeatedly to cause her skull to collapse inward.

Once this post-mortem beating was completed, the attacker lifted her up and threw her down the stairs, causing multiple more abrasions, and the weight of the body falling as it did broke Aera’s femur. She lay crumpled on the stairs, and the murderer took a moment to step over her, as to not track blood after himself, and exited through the backdoor, putting on his shoes again as he did.

As he passed around the side of the house, he looked up to the window of the hallway in which he had just murdered Aera. He founded a painted stone that some of the kids from the community center had painted from beside a fence post and hurled it through the hallway window, breaking it inward.

This break prompted the neighbors to wake up and call 911. They thought perhaps someone was starting to break in, but the culprit was already making his getaway into the night.

The first on the scene, of course, was Officer Drautos, who pulled up out front and took point. After expectedly finding the front door to be locked, he told his partner that he would be trying to enter through the rear of the house. This was where he would begin his real work for the evening.

He began by opening the back door and stomping around a bit in the mud just outside it, ensuring that any residual footprints would be destroyed. Upon entering, he moved quickly upstairs around the body, wiping clean the fingerprints from the vase and pocketing the rock that had been used to break the window. This he would return to its spot by the fencepost, but not before quickly moving downstairs and unlocking the front door for his partner, acting as if he had been so overwhelmed by horror and disgust when he found the scene that he’d frozen momentarily.

Officer Furia, once seeing the scene for himself, accepted this completely. Not long after they cordoned off Aera’s house, making sure no one else was on the premises, they were joined by backup from the police department and an ambulance to take the body away.

Aera’s boyfriend Ardyn Izunia awoke at four AM in a feverish daze by a knock on the door. He was taken into custody to be questioned in connection with the crime. With no solid alibi for the time of the crime and a close connection with the victim, Ardyn was easily fingered for the crime. He was the sole suspect for a while, until a few weeks later, Uruk Gilgamesh, a custodian and sometime martial arts instructor at the community center, was brought in as another suspect by Officer Drautos as having engaged in “suspicious activity” regarding Fleuret’s murder.

The murder was highly publicized, and a media frenzy swarmed around it. While Izunia and Gilgamesh were the two main suspects in the case, it was Officer Drautos who came to the forefront of the media’s attention and coverage of the case.

Drautos was the lead investigator in the case of Aera’s murder, so it made sense that he would be the one to hold press conferences to better inform the public of how the investigation was developing. However, his media presence moved from intermittent press conferences to frequent news appearances and even a few appearances on national talk shows. As his relative fame as a result of Aera’s murder grew, so did general suspicion of his involvement. He was officially named as a suspect August 17, 1991.

This was the last major development in this case. Despite multiple suspects and a bounty of evidence, the investigators were not able to conclusively finalize their understanding of the events of the night of Aera’s murder.

However, the official investigation is not where this mystery ends.

Somnus Izunia cut ties with his brother immediately after Aera’s murder, and according to official transcripts, seems to have actively worked to push suspicion his brother’s way, saying Ardyn “was possessive of her” and that “She [Aera] would cringe sometimes, and was never about to do anything that he would not want her to.” This was the extent of his testimony, despite having an intimate knowledge of both a main suspect and the murder victim. There is no indication of Somnus’s meeting Aera at the community center fundraiser the night she was killed anywhere in the official documentation, and some of his on-the-record comments have been purposefully redacted.

Somnus completely severed his ties with his brother and, by extension, the murder when he legally changed his name in late January of 1991.

Until _Cutting Edge_ reporters arrived to investigate further details for a 30th anniversary story, Somnus Lucis seemed to have found his way to complete separation from the murder. He had moved on to a successful career as a federal congressman, and no one had made the connection between him and the life he had left behind. Either that, or he had made sure they had not published what it was they had found out about him.

On the night of October 4, 1990, it was Somnus Lucis (then Somnus Izunia) who had left the fundraiser after speaking with his brother’s girlfriend. Perhaps Aera had said something then that had irked him, but since Somnus’s accomplice had already arranged to be on scene for him that night, it is much more probable that this was planned out further back than just this one night.

It was Somnus who entered the back door carefully, so it would not look like he had, and stuck up on Aera, who did not expect to see him but was not immediately wary of his presence. And it was Somnus who took her life with a passion fueled by his jealousy of her success and his brother’s happiness with her. As soon as he’d killed her, he got to work almost methodically to make it seem like she had been killed some other way, desecrating her corpse and tampering with the evidence at the scene. Anything he missed, he could be sure that his accomplice would clean up after him.

Somnus got to work establishing his brother as a prime suspect, but his work to do so suddenly halted a few weeks into the investigation—most likely when he realized the way having an accused murderer as a brother might poison his political pursuits.

This was when either he or his accomplice Titus Drautos had the idea to implicate the community center’s part-time martial arts instructor, Uruk Gilgamesh, as s suspect despite having no real motive or solid connections to Aera’s murder beyond being her coworker. His lack of an alibi and the intensity of Drautos’s blame, paired with the media depictions of Gilgamesh’s intimidating image—he was a tall, scarred man whose face was grizzled and whose one arm showed his years of martial arts training—kept him as a suspect until his death in 2005.

This served its purpose for Somnus Lucis, who was able to pull enough attention away from his brother so that he would not officially be charged with Aera’s murder. This made it safe for him to separate himself from Ardyn completely without so much worry of future political scrutiny.

The perfect life of a stable job, good girlfriend, and burgeoning future was ripped from Ardyn Izunia, and the new Somnus Lucis was able to move forward to become very successful as a political figure. Titus Drautos’s implication as a suspect was an unfortunate side effect for him, but Lucis had already gotten all that he had wanted to and knew that Drautos couldn’t name him without confessing to his own part in covering up the crime. And Lucis didn’t look back.

However, despite multiple threats and well-covered tracks, the truth does eventually come out, rising to the surface like bones in a Louisiana graveyard—and in this case, Somnus Lucis murdered Aera Fleuret in cold blood. His cover-up lasted thirty years. He destroyed the lives on whom he pinned the blame for this murder. He caused irreparable harm to the communities these people worked hard to support. He misled and lied to his political constituents.

And more than all of this, he cut short the life of a bright, promising, caring, empathetic, and important woman. Somnus Lucis makes victims of all of those who would stand between him and his ambition, and October 1990 is the most glaring example of this.

Uncovering Somnus Lucis’s crimes does not undo them, and does not undo the harm that has come from them. But it is a start toward healing the scars that harm has left, and it is the answer of thirty years of questions.

## Prompto’s Journal (Entry 27)

I didn’t expect it to come so quickly, but I guess we’ve got another assignment.

 _We_ do.

Sort of billing us as a team, which makes sense, but I’m still…

Yeah.

So now we’re just packing stuff up so we can go on our second trip together, but, like, our first assignment _together_. Getting ready and all.

I gave Dr. Gentiana a call the other day, and I started by apologizing to her for ghosting her. Noct had set up the first appointments—or, I guess, probably Luna did—and I hadn’t really followed up on it since then. But I told her about the journal, and she said that it was good that I was continuing with that. With this.

She asked me if I felt like I needed to come in again. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t, but I told her I’d make an appointment when we get back.

Because we’re going out as a team. Gladio and me.

I don’t know what that means for me professionally, I guess, but I do know what it means for me personally. And I like what it means for me, personally.

Plus, Glaido’s pretty excited, too.

And I don’t know what we’re going to find out, but I know we’re going to find it out together. And that’s more important than whatever it is that we’re researching, right?

At least, that’s the way I feel.


End file.
